In Friday’s (5/22) Denver Post, Lisa Kennedy reviews playwright and actress Maria Cheng’s play Fermata, about a multi-generation family of professional classical musicians, currently playing at the ACAD Gallery Theatre in Aurora, Colorado. “Cheng names three artists who influenced her play about three generations of women accomplished in Western classical music: violinist Isaac Stern, pianist and tall drink of water Van Cliburn, and conductor Carlos Kleiber…. Cheng is attuned to the vitality and nuance required to lead and coax the best from an orchestra.… Cheng portrays Da Jieh, daughter of a famous conductor…. Da Jieh, too, is a renowned maestro. She has traveled to a villa in Italy to celebrate her stepmother’s 80th birthday along with younger sister Shiow May (Meegan Annslee) and niece Sabrina (Tarika Cefkin). Still playing the cello with verve, Grandma is showing signs of memory erosion…. Years earlier, [Sabrina] thwarted her parents’ ambitions for her, choosing medicine over the violin…. Indeed, this is a clan entrenched in the classical music community. How accomplished are they? Pope Francis has invited them to Rome.… Cheng is a formidable force. And she has loaded Fermata with rich ideas about artistic legacy, familial love, a father’s failings.”
Posted May 27, 2015
