Pre-show talk:
The audience at the Birmingham Royal Ballet’s penultimate
performance of The Tempest in London
this season were treated to a pre-show talk with Kit Holder, Lachlan Monaghan, and Sally Beamish. Holder introduced the evening, speaking of the Company’s focus
on Shakespeare in this anniversary year. The only production that hasn’t been
related to Shakespeare this year has been The
Nutcracker - its sheer popularity
making it nigh on impossible to cut. The
Tempest is the final production in this year long celebration and they
invested in it fully, commissioning a new score and set.
Sally Beamish spoke of her pleasure at being commissioned to compose
a ballet, a first for her, and something she has desired for some time. She
talked of the creative process – that David Bintley (Choreographer and Director
of BRB) sent her a storyboard which included how long each dance would be and
who was in it, but not what emotions were being expressed. This was
supplemented by Skype sessions before she started work on a new scene in which
they would discuss issues of character and emotion, to make sure they were both
focusing on the same ideas. It took her eighteen months to compose and unusually
she wrote it as an orchestral score and then had to create a piano version for
rehearsals (composers would ordinarily do the reverse).
Beamish and Monaghan went on to speak of how the dancers responded
to the music and how different it was to have in mind the dancers’ needs when
creating. The emphasis on clear beats, albeit not so far as to make it
monotonous for the audience to listen to, was a new challenge for Beamish and
Bintley rejected some sections as too lyrical, meaning the dancers would have struggled to
know where they were in it. The cast themselves didn’t hear the full score
until two nights before opening night and had some moments of difficulty trying
to pick out beats that had been obvious from the piano but once they were woven
into the percussion suddenly became more difficult to discern.
Monaghan spoke briefly of the pleasure of having a piece created on
him. Neptune was created for him, and although he is Caliban in the second cast
he was still witness to a lot of the creative process. Neptune is not a
character from Shakespeare’s The Tempest and
so was an entirely new character, there were no previous examples for him to
look to. For Caliban there have been various versions to draw from, and he
watched this version being created for Tyrone. He spoke of the need to make a
role yours, whether it be one that has been performed many times by many
performers or a brand new role. He spoke of Bintley’s skill at bringing out
individual strengths. Having delighted the audience for half an hour, the dancers
had to rush backstage to prepare for the evening’s performance.
The show:
The stage is set as a watery expanse, gold glimmering in the centre.
Ariel (Max Maslen) floats to the gold, swimming through the ‘water’ elegantly.
Before we know it there are waves crashing across the stage, a skillful use of
billowing silk, strobe lighting adds to the drama, and it is a spectacular
start. The staging throughout must be commended, Rae Smith (of War Horse fame) having done a first
class job transporting us to a magical, ethereal world. The costume is also a
delightful mix of the Elizabethan and the magical, and yet the choreography
does not quite hold up to the impressiveness of the aesthetics. When I think
back to the performance I barely remember any sequences of dance, what remains
is the staging.
The dancers are not to be criticized, they showed their skill, of
which they have plenty, yet there was something missing. The complexity of the
characters was not developed and although the narrative was carefully followed
it lacked the power of the play. There was humour with Trinculo and Stephano,
their drunkenness and circus-esque performances added a light tone to the
evening but Prospero, despite his impressive standing does not have opportunity
to show his struggles. The divertissements of Act Two, although perfectly
pretty, are too lengthy, reminiscent of the Royal Ballet’s The Sleeping Beauty where you are left wondering if it is really
necessary to give so much time to extraneous characters.
There are moments of stillness with almost the whole Company on
stage which were quite stunning but the movements themselves did not encourage
the audience to engage with the narrative. Beamish’s score adds atmosphere to
the proceedings, and is a pleasant change with the prominence of percussion.
Overall, a visually and aurally enjoyable evening that could be great with a
little more attention to the choreography.
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