Story of Whoa

Sunday afternoon, I attended the last show of The National Ballet's new Romeo and Juliet. Previous performances of this ballet used Cranko's choreography which dates to the 60s. Recently, Karen Kain commissioned hot-shot Russian choreographer Alexei Ratmansky to produce a new version of this ballet, including sets and costumes.

The story takes place in an almost abstract modernist Verona. The staging had gigantic buildings, beds, and hallways that dwarf the dancers. Everything seems skewed, as if you are inside a painting that used perspective drawing, which would of course look 3 dimensional as a flat canvas but one that would seem strange if it actually had a 3rd dimension. In contrast, the dancers with the exception of the two main leads wore sumptuous and evocative costumes. It was a wonder that they could dance in some of the more voluminous garbs.

And they had to dance. One of the changes from Cranko's version is that the corps and all the secondary casts were called upon to dance a lot more. The choreography was a fusion of classical ballet with touches of contemporary steps, most notably the Carnival Men who joked around to the amusement of the town folk and the rhythmic clapping and stomping done by the latter.

The characters had distinctive dance steps. A standout was Benvolio, as a rakish devil-may-care. His extended death scene was played for laughs to highlight this attitude, until it became obvious his injury was grave. The sword fights were wild and exciting, combining actual sword-play with balletic leaps and twirls. The famous Montague procession became ominous instead of typically grandiose as the men brandished their blades while the women flowed around the outside.

The main beneficiary of the new choreography was undoubtedly Juliet. She had several beautiful pas-de-deux and pas-de-trois with her nurse, her parents, Tybalt, Paris, and Romeo: full of tension and passion. Romeo did not fare as well. His antics with Mercutio and Benvolio were pedestrian. His interactions with Juliet could have used a little more fire.

The casting for this run was a topic of conversation as the opening night slot (and print advertisement) went to first soloist Elena Lobsanova instead of one of the principal dancers. For this final performance, the casting was even more unusual. Second soloist Chelsy Meiss danced as Juliet and Romeo was corps de ballet dancer Brendan Saye. Supposedly, Ratmansky hand-picked them for the roles. If true, that would be real life imitating art (or Hollywood cliche): the talented ingenue plucked from the obscurity of the chorus line to shine in the limelight.