http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/18/arts/dance/18swan.html
Dance Review
Prince’s Fate, Entwined With Desire
By GIA KOURLAS
Published: October 17, 2010
The choreographer and director
Matthew Bourne has said that as a child he found swans frightening, so it’s only fitting that in his theatrical mind they are as well — wild, menacing creatures, quicker on land than you might expect and poised to attack. They tip the scale more toward power than pretty; they’re also played by men.
“Matthew Bourne’s Swan Lake” — a painterly exploration of desire told through dance — has returned to New York for the first time since 1998, when the production played on Broadway and won three Tony Awards. On Friday night New Adventures, Mr. Bourne’s company, began a three-week run of it at City Center.
Unlike the previous production, this one used taped music; in protest representatives from Local 802 of the American Federation of Musicians handed out leaflets outside the theater that read, “There is no music tonight,” and “It is going to be a fake performance!” Neither turned out to be true, but the lack of an orchestra, especially in a show that retells the music as much as the dance, was singularly felt.
Like the classical ballet, Mr. Bourne’s version involves a prince and a swan, but here both are male; his reinterpretation raises the ballet’s inherent sexiness and gives Tchaikovsky’s music new force. In this most recent incarnation it’s not merely a sensation but fairly sensational too. Over the years Mr. Bourne’s production has frequently and erroneously been described as an all-male version of the ballet. There are women as well, and it’s less a ballet than a modern-dance retelling of one. It is laced with references to ballet as well as to Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers, the British royal family and the notion of acceptance.
The story revolves around a queen (the captivating
Nina Goldman) whose repressed son, the prince (
Dominic North), is having a meltdown. Born into a job he has no feel for, he lacks love. (The only time his mother touches him is in public.) When he encounters a swan ([b
]Richard Winsor[/b]), he not only figures out what kind of a man he wants to be and be with — daring, passionate and free — he also finds hope.
As a storyteller Mr. Bourne is unwavering in his ease, and [b
]Lez Brotherston[/b]’s set is full of surprises, like when the prince’s bed, in reverse, becomes a royal balcony. Mr. Brotherston’s costumes have gone through a few alterations (the queen now wears scarlet in the ballroom scene) but give the production a glamorous uniformity.
In the opening waltz Mr. Bourne cleverly relates the back story: the prince accompanies the queen to an assortment of events to learn the rules of royalty. It doesn’t come naturally. Ms. Goldman’s queen, outwardly serene and inwardly lustful, shows that’s she’s capable of affection, just not the maternal kind. The prince’s girlfriend (a hilariously crass Madelaine Brennan) also appears, and it’s soon apparent that she is trouble. She also seems to be in cahoots with the shifty private secretary (Scott Ambler).
Escaping the palace, the prince, performed with a mesmerizing innocence by Mr. North, makes his way to a park, where he scribbles a suicide note. Before he can jump into the lake, Mr. Winsor’s swan appears — radiant, wearing feathered breeches and marked with a black streak on his forehead.
Mr. Winsor is a darting, restless swan, sweeping fiercely through the music or quieting his body to instill the notes with foreboding presence. He creates tension in the smallest of moments: when he bends over and arches into a head roll, the movement takes on a dangerous edge. In their pas de deux he and Mr. North play with weight, parting and connecting until the swan cradles the prince.
When Mr. Bourne is not advancing the story, the choreography for the rest of the flock can give off a whiff of generic modern dance; there is a rough power as the swans move from one side of the stage to the other, but also a repetitiveness in their leaps and turns. Their isolated poses provide more lasting intensity, recalling images of Nijinsky.
Mr. Winsor shows up again in the ballroom scene, but this time he’s the stranger, wearing black leather pants and flaunting a riding crop. All the woman in the room are intrigued, including the queen. Mocking the prince’s imploring looks, the stranger seduces them all. For the prince, it’s unclear what is reality and what is fantasy.
In the ballroom dances Mr. Bourne is at his most reverential and humorous: during the coda the stranger sweeps the queen into his arms for a series of lifts. Taken from the “Yam” dance in
Astaire and
Rogers’s “Carefree,” the move fits perfectly with the music.
For the prince this is the final straw; he loses his grip and is locked away. Swans, more predatory than ever, appear from underneath his bed like a horror scene out of “The Birds.” The confident stranger is gone; Mr. Winsor, back in swan form, claws his way through the mattress.
It’s harrowing, but in the end “Matthew Bourne’s Swan Lake” represents a question larger than the story itself: When is tradition necessary, and when do we break free? At the end of the film “Billy Elliot,” the title character is about to leap onstage, not as a prince, but as Mr. Bourne’s swan. It’s an unexpected ending: in that moment we know that Billy Elliot, like Mr. Bourne, hasn’t taken the traditional road, but given tradition a push.
“Matthew Bourne’s Swan Lake” continues through Nov. 7 at City Center, 131 West 55th Street, Manhattan; (212) 581-1212, www.nycitycenter.org.
