Ever Your Own, Edgar and The Yellow Wallpaper, Adler Danztheatre Project, at the Belle Plaine Studios, through May 17. These works combining text and dance end up doing justice to neither. The first, based on writings by Edgar Allan Poe, sets him adrift among stereotyped muses, harpies, and martyrs intended to represent the women in his life. A few danced encounters are erotic, but in an obvious, stylized, overly polite way. Joseph Gilbert looks the part of Poe, but his lack of vocal control reduces to melodrama Edgar’s swoops from euphoria to despair. A sharp lean against a chair that finally gives way has a certain interest, and Gilbert handles it well, but the move is so risky it detracts from the storytelling. The women are capable dancers, but none shows much acting talent, and Ellyzabeth Adler’s choreography is uninventive, with more poses than movement.
