Royal Ballet: Triple Bill of works by Wheeldon, Scarlett & McGregor

The Royal Ballet: Triple Bill (Wheeldon, Scarlett & McGregor)

I wrote part of this review before I had seen the performance. It is an interesting exercise. We all have our preconceptions, however hard we try to hide them. Leo Stein, the keenly perceptive art critic who was eclipsed by his younger sister, Gertrude, said ‘Criticism makes, explains and justifies discriminations.’ But I am relieved to say that the Royal Ballet Triple Bill produced reactions that I had not contemplated and forced me to ditch most of what I had written and start again.

By now you all know who presented what at the #ROHTriple, and for those who still don’t, it’s possibly too late to remember. Much has already been said about the performances, but for this tortoise of a writer, analyzing the evening kept serving up new perceptions that made me return to the printed program, to my notes, to the book I was reading at the time, and back to this page. One of the premises of quantum theory is that by the very act of watching, the observer affects the observed reality. Here, then, are my final thoughts. For now.

Christopher Wheeldon’s Polyphonia opens the evening. This is a revival, first performed by the Royal Ballet in 2003, and originally created for New York City Ballet. The acknowledgement to Balanchine is clear as soon as the curtain rises. Everything is stripped down, and it is a question of watching the music, which is also stripped down to solo piano works by György Ligeti. Wheeldon saw in these a ‘complex, twisted, layered world’ that he presents brilliantly in a series of dances for four couples that rely for their effect on musical and spatial timings. This particular performance is not helped, however, by a less than rigorous execution with the notable exception of Itziar Mendizabal and Dawid Trzensimiech who finish the 8th variation together with a glorious flourish. Overall, however, there is something missing. I happen to be sitting next to the former headmistress of a prestigious boarding school for girls who had seen Polyphonia in its original production for the Royal Ballet and had loved it. With that skillful eye and practiced tone of a wise pedagogue, she articulates the problem precisely. “Yes, it’s a little rough around the edges.”

Next up is Sweet Violets, the new work of soloist Liam Scarlett. For those who saw his Asphodel Meadows last year, this is a departure into narrative with a decidedly emotional palette. I don’t think it is particularly successful in itself, for the reasons outlined below, but it is an important step for a young choreographer developing the range of his art.

Sweet Violets, I learned, was the Irish song the prostitute Mary Kelly was heard singing in the early hours of the morning she was murdered. Tackling Jack the Ripper’s psychopathic killing of prostitutes in the late 19th century’s grimy London poses a particular challenge to a company with beautiful dancers who are all good looking, fit, refined, and graceful. Their costumes are bright and neatly laundered, Health and Safety have washed and starched the sheets, and the artist’s studio is beautifully lit and clean. No trace here of the grubby, stifling atmosphere of Sickert’s paintings. Most remarkably, in the aftermath of the two grizzly murders, there is not a drop of blood on the sheets (Health and Safety again, no doubt).  If this wasn’t enough of a challenge, the score, Rachmaninoff’s beautifully played Trio élégaique, is just too elegantly passionate to support the story of a psychopathic killer and his coterie of low-life friends and prostitutes. What comes out at best was sweet violence.

But there is a much more fundamental problem with the work, and it concerns the plot itself. A reprinted article in the program by the eminent art critic, Martin Gayford, ridicules Patricia Cornwell’s book (which I was reading at the time) accusing Walter Sickert himself of being the Ripper, and Scarlett insists in his Performance Note that the various claims of Sickert’s involvement in the crimes have all now been ‘widely discredited’. So why is one of the most convoluted of the discredited theories – the so-called royal conspiracy involving Queen Victoria’s grandson, Eddy – woven into the plot of Sweet Violets even though Eddy, at the time of the murder of Emily Dimmock, had been dead some fifteen years and the aristocratic, face-slapping prime minister, Lord Salisbury, had died four years before? This is important because by adopting this conflation of a plot, and by avoiding any suggestion that Sickert was the Ripper, Scarlett is now burdened with an implausible cast of characters who do not form a cohesive narrative.

What a shame that in a company of such apparent resources as the Royal Ballet, no dramaturg, no outside eye, seems to have worked with the choreographer during the creation of Sweet Violets to flag these potential problems, for it is the plot’s flaw that undermines all other aspects of the production. John Macfarlane’s sets and David Finn‘s lighting are strikingly beautiful (even if the studio is too clean and bright), but the numerous set changes just sap the energy of the work. The real tragedy is that Scarlett’s choreography is lost in the fray, victim of too many ill-defined characters (and wonderful dancers) in search of something to do.

Who comes off best of the evening? It is without a doubt Wayne McGregor’s Carbon Life, the work that closes the evening to applause from a young (you could tell by the cheers) and enthusiastic audience. Not that I like the choreography particularly, but it delivers where the other two pieces, for different reasons, do not. It is the one work that is slick, well produced (brilliantly inventive lighting by Lucy Carter), well danced, well rehearsed and seems to achieve what it sets out to do. Whatever that is.

It will soon be in the hands of Kevin O’Hare to plot the future artistic course of the Royal Ballet. Having Wayne McGregor as resident choreographer brings to the company elements that other choreographers of a more classical stripe could use: dynamism, brilliant production values, and raw energy wrapped in a contemporary idiom. But McGregor can by no means claim the high ground in choreographic language and is evidently not interested in narrative work, in which the Royal Ballet has traditionally excelled. Seeing this program is to see three creators who offer excellent and complementary qualities. Bringing them together might be just the kind of legacy Dame Monica Mason is proud to leave, and finding a judicious path that can embrace their diverse talents and nurture their development will keep Kevin O’Hare occupied for a good while.

New Dance Commissions at the Linbury Studio Theatre

I think Southern Railways is taxing evening shows in London. The last cheap online train ticket leaving London is for the 21:47, so I booked it hoping the New Dance Commissions at the Linbury Studio Theatre on March 29 would be short enough that I could sneak out right at the end and still catch the train. The price of the next two trains goes up by £10 and with these advance off peak tickets, if you miss a train and come across a surly collector at the barrier, you are sent to the ticket counter where you have to pay for a new ticket at the full price of £25.  When I arrive at the Linbury and ask when the performance will finish, I realise if I am going to catch that 21:47 I will miss Freddie Opoku-Addaie’s new work, so I decide to take the risk and take a later train. What is the point of going to see new work and leaving before the end? I convince myself it is worth the extra £25 (otherwise the sudden shock of having to pay £25 on top of what you have already paid has a strong chance of ruining the evening).

When not in London, I am looking after my mother on the south coast and the television in the house is quite often on for long tracts of time. I moved up into the attic because the volume on the TV is quite high even though my mother can hear the cat flap open and close three rooms away. In the attic I am insulated against the antiques game commentary and the other three antiques knock-off programs during the day, not to mention the cooking programs and the endless news. So Sarah Dowling’s Remote strikes a nerve and I am in turn agreeing with the proposition (that the remote makes us remote) and railing against its manifestation on stage. Yes, it’s all so false, illusionary, reality-deprived, crass nonsense. Much as I want the dancers to smash the TVs, these sets are too cleverly designed (by Tim Adnitt and Becs Andrews) as lighting sources and sound consoles to destroy them, and besides there are 2 more performances. I spend too much time wondering why the costumes are like that to enjoy the movement, as if the costumes have a narrative that the movement does not support, or the movement is so successfully disembodied and emotionally estranged that the costumes are a distraction. And then after the duets it all stops, as if my mother had turned off the remote mid-program in time for dinner.

Laïla Diallo is beautiful. I saw her in Montreal in Sense of Self with Mélanie Demers where she wears a black gorilla head for some of the time, but I much prefer seeing her as she is here, a fellow traveler in her latest work, Hold Everything Dear. The themes of migration and the dislocation of travel are so beautifully captured from the first moment.  The way the dancers cross the stage and leave a different pattern of strewn persons and baggage is as if in a dream (another quality of constant travel). And remember that Guy Hoare is lighting it, so it looks exactly like it is supposed to. Everyone is in transit, even the musicians, which is why Jules Maxwell, the pianist and music director, can never sit at his keyboard. The music is just right, a gypsy flavour, with an air of traveling, moving, never quite belonging. And then the walking transforms into dance, beautifully evocative solos of looseness and freedom. I am reading Andrew Graham-Dixon’s biography of Caravaggio (whom Guy Hoare may well have helped to light his subjects in an earlier existence). Caravaggio’s central figures are beautifully lit, while the secondary figures fade into the blackness, features barely visible, yet present. Look at The Calling of Saint Matthew and the second version of his St. Matthew and the Angel for examples. Similarly, Laïla’s solo fades from light into dusk, yet you see it all, because what is essential can be seen, moving. At one point the strikingly rich voice of Gabi Froden cuts through the shadows, the voice as a beacon in the dark, leading you, encouraging you. Solo dances just drift into being in the crossing patterns. Theo Clinkard (whose colours and costumes are an integral part of the beauty of the piece) and Helka Kaski dance with equal fluidity and sinuousness. I remember the stillness of Laïla standing on a pier, looking out over the water. How many times have you been there, dreaming, feeling the breeze on a summer evening? Then imperceptibly I am watching a duet with Laïla and Theo and I say to myself no, that’s not supposed to happen here, there’s a link missing. Time stops drifting and even the fluidity of the duet cannot bring back the dreamlike passing of time. It feels like a later part of the project has been stitched on to the earlier mosaic, a few pages missing in between. Perhaps it will find its own place in the fullness of the work that will be developed during a residency at Bath ICIA in May. I have confidence Laïla can do it.

Now I am in risk territory, because I am staying to watch Freddie’s piece, Absent Made Present, and know I may have to cough up the £25, but I am prepared. And when the stage reveals the harmony of the vertical white cords with weights of clay I say yes, I’m glad I stayed. Katherine Morling’s (or is it James Button’s?) set hangs there and is beautiful to watch in its poise, lit by David W. Kidd. Dancers (they are playing about at this time and haven’t yet shown their stuff) change the equilibrium of the finely balanced clay weights, lob them in from the wings to be caught with panache in the janitor’s bucket. The stage is divided into three zones, right, left and centre. Centre is surrounded on three sides by the white cords. So the left and right side have delicate cords on one side and heavy black velvet wings at the back and sides. It is in these awkward physical spaces that the best parts are happening, where the dark velvet wings prove almost overpowering. The dance spreads through the cords and over the middle section, and this is fluid, funny (Freddie has a great sense of humour, a smile that is always there), intricate and breathtaking (especially for the dancers as they knock each other over with grace and precision, with no roughness, no loss of gentleness). There is so much action with the clay weights (spattered on the ground, demarking the supine dancers, unbalancing the cords, tying them up, untying them again), that they should have a curtain call at the end. They might have had a curtain call, but I have to leave quickly to catch my train. I walk over Waterloo Bridge, take the Clapham Junction train, make my connection and wait with some apprehension for the ticket collector to make his rounds. The misgivings of having to pay £25 return. When he arrives I show him my ticket and say I am sorry I missed my earlier train. He must have been at the Linbury too and is full of calm and light and he says, oh don’t worry about that.