#lez brotherston

[nayumis]

Matthew Bourne's Swanlake

This is Emilie’s favourite dance performance and a significant research point in my project development as it connected to my prior interest in how ballet is being converted to be more contemporary, and it was a great visual inpiration for my project’s costume, lighting setup, and overall aesthetic. 

Matthew Bourne's "Swan Lake" is a contemporary interpretation of the classic ballet. The production has been highly praised for its modernization of the original story and its use of male dancers as the swans.

In a review by The Guardian, the author praises Bourne's ability to modernize the story while still keeping its essential elements intact. The use of male dancers as the swans brings a new dynamic to the production, and the overall choreography is described as "powerful and emotive."

Another article by The Guardian features an interview with Bourne, where he discusses the process of creating his version of "Swan Lake." He explains that he wanted to make the story more relatable to contemporary audiences while still respecting the original material. Bourne also discusses his choice to use male dancers as the swans, stating that he wanted to challenge traditional gender roles in ballet.

The Los Angeles Times also reviewed Bourne's production, noting the striking visual design and the impressive athleticism of the dancers. The article praises Bourne for bringing a new perspective to the classic story while still retaining its emotional impact.

A review by Critical Dance focuses on the themes of Bourne's production, particularly the exploration of masculinity and vulnerability. The article praises the use of male dancers as a way to subvert traditional gender roles and create a powerful commentary on society's expectations of masculinity.

Overall, these articles praise Matthew Bourne's "Swan Lake" for its modernization of the classic story, its use of male dancers as the swans, and its exploration of themes of masculinity and vulnerability.

https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/theatre-dance/features/swan-lakes-revolutionary-twist-613041.html

COSTUME HAIR CHOICES:

The Independent's website titled "Swan Lake's revolutionary twist" that discusses Matthew Bourne's decision to have his male swans shave their heads. The article explains that Bourne wanted his male dancers to have a more "androgynous look" and believed that the shaved heads would help achieve this. This choice also benefitted the dancers as their hair would not move as they dance, and the light reflected made their sillouettes apper clearer and swan-like. According to the article, the dancers were initially hesitant to shave their heads, but eventually agreed to do so. The article also touches on other aspects of Bourne's production, including his decision to set the ballet in an asylum and his use of contemporary music.

When exploring this, Emilie (my dancer) explained to me about how this ballet adaptation was her favourite contemporary ballet pieces, and it inspired many of her dances. When discussing the Bourne's choices to shave his dancer's hair, Emilie said she was willing to shave her hair for my project to reflect her inspirations in my project.

[bournefan]

Lez Brotherston got an OBE for services to dance and theatre!

[perry-tannenbaum]

Bourne Again in the London Blitz

Bourne Again in the London Blitz

Review: Matthew Bourne’s Cinderella By Perry Tannenbaum

Enemy aircraft buzzes across the London skies at all hours, bomb blasts shake the earth and light up the night, and tall buildings you have known your whole life are in flames or rubble. So who are the people you hate most in life? If you’re the protagonist in Matthew Bourne’s Cinderella, it isn’t Hitler or Nazi Germany. No, you’re likely…

[hayleysprout13]

The Red Shoes @ Sadler's Wells*

Penultimate review of the year --- The Red Shoes @ Sadler's Wells*

Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐ Tickets and more information: https://www.sadlerswells.com/whats-on/2019/matthew-bournes-production-of-the-red-shoes-new-adventures/ Booking until: 19th January 2020 Run time: 1hr 55 mins Production Photographs by: Johan Persson

Despite passing Sadler’s Wells all the time, seeing The Red Shoes was my first trip there. This production was also my first trip to a ballet performance…

[peterviney1]

Forty Years On – Review Review of Alan Bennett's Forty Years On at Chichester Festival Theatre, featuring Richard Wilson as The Headmaster.

[burntcopper]

(text below as it’s a premium article, more pictures and such at the link)

Mark Monahan, dance critic

7 MAY 2019 • 7:00AM

It is one of those volatile spring days where the weather can’t make up its mind, and I am in the studios at Three Mills Island, deep in the East End of London, watching rehearsals for Matthew Bourne’s brand-new production of Romeo and Juliet. To judge by the section of Prokofiev’s ever-astonishing score firing from the speakers, we are in the midst of the final, calamitous scene of Act II.

Tybalt staggers on, paralytically drunk. So far, so familiar to anyone who’s seen certain Tybalts in the Royal Ballet’s production – except that he is also clutching a revolver, which he brandishes at the terrified crowd of young onlookers. He then takes Mercutio and Balthasar hostage, forcing them, at gunpoint, to snog each other. As Bourne slyly tells me a little later, “I should say, it doesn’t follow the plot exactly – it is a Romeo and Juliet-type story We have got a couple of surprises up our sleeve…”

How could Bourne possibly not? After all, he is the dance-theatre supremo who, with his company Adventures in Motion Pictures (recast as New Adventures in 2002), has repeatedly put bold new spins on old works, often opening them up to entirely new audiences.

He is most famous for having redefined ballet at a stroke in 1995 by making all the waterfowl in his Swan Lake brazenly bare-chested men. But he also spiced up Carmen with a dash of The Postman Always Rings Twice and set the result in a steamy garage (The Car Man, 2000); transformed an obscure Sixties film, The Servant, into perhaps the other sexiest dance show so far this millennium (Play Without Words, 2002); and risked taking two adored, emphatically cinematic films – Edward Scissorhands and The Red Shoes – and putting them on stage (in 2005 and 2016). It was also Bourne who set Cinderella in Blitz-ravaged London (1997), thoroughly re-cracked The Nutcracker (1992) and sharpened up The Sleeping Beauty with vampires (2012). The fact that this master choreographer-producer and storyteller – already riding high with his superb current revival of Swan Lake – is now tackling the most stirring balletic tale of all makes this the single most eagerly awaited dance show of 2019.  

“I think the key to the success of this company,” he tells me, “is that it brings in people who feel this is not something they’d normally understand, something they’re a bit scared of.”

So, besides the snippet of Act II that I catch, what sort of Romeo and Juliet can we expect when it launches in Leicester next week? The various New Adventures members I chat to prior to Bourne himself maintain an omertà-like silence about it, saying only that it’s set in an unspecified time in the near future, and reminding me that the show’s tag-line is “Imagine a time when love is forbidden …”.

Thankfully, the New Adventures grand vizier himself – remarkably affable and unstuffy in person – is a little more forthcoming. Designed (as usual with this company) by the terrific Lez Brotherston, the show, Bourne says, will be roughly two hours long, in three acts, but with just one interval, with the score rearranged (by Terry Davies) for a 15-strong live band. He also says that his scenario was “very vaguely” inspired by Anna Hope’s 2016 novel The Ballroom. Beyond that, however, Bourne is careful to tantalise rather than reveal, and this spirit of mystery extends to the show itself.

“We haven’t absolutely hit on a definite ‘this is it’ thing,” he says, “We think all these young people are in this institute. I want the audience to ask, ‘Why are they there? Is this to do with mental health? Is this a borstal? Is this a prison, a school? What is it? What’s going on? They’re obviously receiving some sort of medication. What it comes down to is that any excess of feeling is frowned upon and has to be, um…”

Quelled?

“Yes, quelled – good word! So, emotions are kept to a minimum, and they’re all young people who’ve been dumped there, because they’re trouble.”

Tybalt, Bourne explains, is now a corrupt guard. And, although there appears to be no Capulet family in this version, “we still get one set of parents, the Montagues, who bring Romeo there. We see him arrive, and they’re a bit like Kevin Spacey and Robin Wright in House of Cards, a political couple probably, and Romeo’s a bit of an embarrassment. He’s a bit like [the US President’s youngest child] Barron Trump, but a little bit older. He seems to have been locked away somewhere, bless him, poor boy.”

Bourne also hints that he, true to form, will not be holding back on the sensual side of things.

“I felt I could capture something that’s not in the ballet if we set it in a different time, something that was a bit more raw, a bit more like young people really are. I mean, when they get together, they go for it. They’re not thrilled by a kiss on the cheek – if they’re kissing, they’re kissing for hours.”

The regularity with which the word “young” comes up as we talk nods to another remarkable aspect of this new production. It marks the largest confluence to date of the two main strands of Bourne’s company: its fully professional performing side, and the charitable arm that aims to inspire young people to try their hand at dance. In practice, this means that a huge and heartening number of young people are involved in every aspect of the production which features two separate casts, each with their own set of star-crossed lovers.

It’s remarkable enough that two of the Juliets – Bryony Wood and Bryony Harrison – are just 19 and 21 respectively, and that one of the Romeos (Harrison Dowzell) is also 19. But many of the performers will be younger still.

A year or so ago, the company did a nationwide call-out for what they call the “local casts”. It whittled the 1,000-odd trainee dancers who applied down to 97, all aged 16-19, who will now be performing with the company. Throughout the 13-venue tour, New Adventures will be divided in half, with each half leapfrogging the other across the country. So, as one (dubbed the Capulets) starts performing in one town, the other (the Montagues) will begin a week’s pre-show rehearsal in the next. And waiting to join the company in every city, with the adrenalin doubtless pumping ferociously, will be six of those already-prepped youngsters. (The exception is the Leicester sextet, already involved in the London rehearsals.)

This, I suggest to the young-cast rehearsal director Paul Smethurst, looks like a project that could benefit British dance full-stop. “We have definitely found the next generation of star dancers,” he says. “And, we’ve found so many of them.”

What’s more, this youth drive extends to every aspect of the production. For example, young associate choreographer Arielle Smith is just 22. When she insists to me that Bourne often tells her, “Do what you want to do!”, and Smethurst, that “Arielle has a real voice and a real vision that she’s bringing to the piece”, I do privately wonder just how much trust the 59-year-old, Tony- and Olivier-garlanded Sir Matthew Bourne, OBE can really be putting in one so young. Then, minutes later – with Bourne coaching the principals across the corridor – there she is, working with dozens of corps members, and “holding” the room with complete command.

Now, these are, of course, gender-fluid times, especially in the eyes of the young. Besides which, Hackney-born Bourne (who these days lives in Islington with his partner, fellow choreographer Arthur Pita) has often toyed around with sexuality in his productions. Was he, I wonder, tempted to make his Romeo and Juliet a gay romance?

“Well,” he says, “I suppose years ago I may have gone with that. But, following on from Lord of the Flies [revived in 2014 with a largely teenage cast], which was all men, I didn’t feel this was the right time to go all male. So I thought, no, this is a chance to work with young people of both sexes.”

That said, Tybalt’s viciously enforced embrace does suggest that Bourne is up to plenty of gender-related mischief here.

“Oh, definitely, yes,” he confirms. “We wanted to have all life is here a little bit, especially with all the young people involved. I give them a bit of freedom with whatever sexuality they choose to be – how their character identified was important. For example, Mercutio’s got a boyfriend in this – that’s Balthasar. And there are a couple of girl characters who identify as gay, with one, Frenchy, who’s in love with Juliet.”

If anyone can get away with all this sort of thing, it is Bourne. His theatrical instincts have seldom let him down over the years (2008’s Dorian Gray the exception that proves the rule), and the brief section I see rehearsed – despite the absence of proper set, lighting, costumes and live music – is genuinely thrilling. What, I ask him, is the secret of his success? How has someone who didn’t even start dance training until he was 22 (at the Laban, in south-east London) made such a colossal mark on the dance world?

He credits his famous obsession with character – with giving every single person on stage a backstory and a purpose – with having collaborated on various non-New Adventures shows with “great directors” such as Trevor Nunn, John Caird, Sam Mendes and Richard Eyre. He also adds, “I think the key to the success is that I’m also quite reverential. I love the ballets, I love the scores, and I don’t want to mess with them too much. I want to honour the composers in a way that I feel is OK. And I want to tell a story to people.”

And want to get the audience involved?

“Yes,” he confirms. “And it just comes completely naturally to me. It’s not something I work at. I’ve never thought, ‘How do you get an audience on-side?’ It’s just completely the way I think about things, and I don’t see the point of it otherwise.”

Matthew Bourne’s Romeo + Juliet opens on May 13 at the Curve, Leicester, and tours the UK until October. Details and tickets: new-adventures.net

[thoughtsofadancerboo]

Matthew Bourne’s Sleeping Beauty

Performed at the Esplanade Theatre; Watched twice on ????

_________

I actually watched Matthew Bourne’s Sleeping Beauty TWICE from the same row of seats (super coincidental). I didn’t like it a lot, because I watched his Swan Lake and absolutely LOVED it so my expectations were way up there.

For over a century, Marius Petipa’s Sleeping Beauty has been one of the basics of classical ballet repertoire in companies all over the world, as well as a renowned one for being one of the three ballets composed by Tchaikovsky. Award-winning choreographer Matthew Bourne of New Adventures puts his own unique spin on the century-old ballet, bringing his Matthew Bourne’s Sleeping Beauty to Singapore after a highly successful tour of Matthew Bourne’s Swan Lake in 2014.

The music by Tchaikovsky was still retained throughout Matthew Bourne’s Sleeping Beauy (MBSB), connecting this more contemporary take on Sleeping Beauty to the 1890 version. The story, although vastly different in adding vampires and secret childhood sweethearts to the mix, still keeps the backbone of a hundred-year sleep and true love’s kiss. After Aurora pricks her finger on a rose planted by the late Carrabosse’s son, Cadorac, the whole castle goes on shut down. Count Lilac, the vampiric version of the Lilac Fairy, turns Aurora’s secret sweetheart, the garden boy Leo, into a vampire so that he can wake Aurora up with true love’s kiss after the hundred-year wait. Romantic.

It is 2011 and Vampire Leo enters the castle after a hundred-year intermission (cue laughter from audience), and goes through the Land of the Sleepwalkers. He manages to enter Aurora’s bedroom, in which Cadorac lies in wait. Cadorac brings Leo to a sleeping Aurora, whom Leo kisses. But alas, Cadorac’s minions grab hold of Leo and drag him away, while Cadorac pretends that he was the one who woke her up. With the hundred-year wait, it seems sensible that Cadorac fell in love with an unconscious Aurora as well.

Leo and Count Lilac try to save her by gatecrashing Cadorac’s vampire cult wedding to Aurora. Count Lilac manages to stab Cadorac while Leo grabs Aurora and escapes. Eventually, the two are reunited. Leo and Aurora get into a bed while fairies/vampires hover at the sides, and emerge with Aurora as a vampire and a flying vampire child. And they lived happily ever after.

The dancing was, obviously, remarkable, with an exceptional performance from Count Lilac. The execution of the balances, pirouettes, attitude turns had breathtaking suspension, visible even through the bulky 19th century costumes, and was performed beautifully.

Aurora, a free-spirited soul, happier barefoot than in shoes, is an Isadora Duncan-like figure. Her youth and spunk is a breath of fresh air compared to the dark and stuffy Act I.

Aurora and Leo’s relationship is like that of a first love. They’re happy, giggly, and totally in love (Seriously, they’re RS goals). It’s adorable. The MBSB’s Rose Adagio is an obvious example of their happy relationship: Leo pretends to be angry that Aurora danced with other men at her coming-of-age fancy tea party, and she teasingly cajoles him out of his tantrum. They dance around each other fluidly and it’s a physicalization of their relationship – free and easy.

The sets and costumes for MBSB was beautiful – 19th century dresses and tunics for the vampires in Act 1, and white summer frocks and vests for the men and women in Act 2. The stage is designed with attention given to minute detail – rose hedges, balconies, big windows and a dream-like forest. Nothing was left out and the effect of the set gave the feeling that one was actually in the scene itself.

The timeline of the story was very interestingly placed. Act 1 opens in 1890, which coincidentally is the year in which Petipa’s Sleeping Beauty was first performed, and the vampires come to bestow their wishes onto baby Aurora. The choreography is largely classically based, an acknowledgement of the time period as well as Petipa’s Sleepng Beauty. Act 2 then goes to 1911, and the guests at Aurora’s coming-of-age dance Waltz-inspired social dances. Fast-forward a hundred years, and the vampires at the cult wedding carry out quirky-looking choreography, perhaps a glimpse into the future. The way Bourne played around with the timeline allowed him to explore different historical influences in his choreography, as well as gave Lez Brotherston, in-charge of set and costume design, a lot of room to work with different designs for different time periods.

However, despite having more than enough room to play around with the choreography, MBSB’s choreography was largely unremarkable and unmemorable, especially compared to his Swan Lake, which was performed in Singapore in 2014.

Right from Act 1, Aurora was shown as a girl with lots of spunk and tenacity. I expected the story to be more of a “the girl can save herself” sort of story. However, once she becomes unconscious, the story then follows Leo and his mission to save Aurora from the curse. Even after the curse was lifted, we didn’t get to see any more of Aurora’s personality. The story started out with a “strong, independent woman” vibe, but it went downhill fast, until Aurora just becomes someone in the background compared to Leo.

The ending is also quick and abrupt: Leo saves Aurora, they have sex behind a curtain and emerge with a baby. The end. And they lived happily ever after. Personally, I felt that it was just “lazy writing”, a way to end the story quickly and with a happy ending.

Overall, MBSB is a lovely time travel through a hundred or so years, with multiple references to different time periods through the choreography, the costumes and the sets. However, the storyline doesn’t elicit any strong emotions, nor is the choreography particularly exceptional.

[gramilano]

Matthew Bourne’s Swan Lake. Will Bozier as ‘The Swan’. Photo by Johan Persson

Matthew Bourne’s Swan Lake will be screened in cinemas in the UK on Tuesday 21 May 2019.

Bourne says,

I’m thrilled that this brand-new production of my Swan Lake will be in cinemas… It has become a modern classic much beloved by the British public and throughout the world. Its popularity has never been greater, and several generations of audiences have been inspired and moved by its universal story of love and acceptance.

Now 24 years after Swan Lake was first performed more people than ever before will be able to experience the dramatic power and mesmerising performances on the big screen.

New Adventures’ production comes to cinemas with a fresh look for the 21st century. Retaining the most striking elements of the original staging, Bourne and his award-winning designers Lez Brotherston (set and costumes) and Paule Constable (lighting) have created a stunning re-imagining which was first seen at Sadler’s Wells, London, in January 2019, where it was filmed live for cinemas.

Will Bozier plays The Swan/The Stranger, Liam Mower is The Prince and Nicole Kabera is The Queen.

Matthew Bourne’s SWAN LAKE. Nicole Kabera ‘The Queen’ and Liam Mower ‘The Prince’. Photo by Johan Persson

Matthew Bourne’s SWAN LAKE. Photo by Johan Persson

Matthew Bourne’s SWAN LAKE. Liam Mower ‘The Prince’ and Nicole Kabera ‘The Queen”. Photo by Johan Persson

Matthew Bourne’s SWAN LAKE. Liam Mower ‘The Prince’. Photo by Johan Persson (1)

Matthew Bourne’s SWAN LAKE. Liam Mower ‘The Prince’. Photo by Johan Persson

Matthew Bourne’s SWAN LAKE. Photo by Johan Persson 05

Bourne’s production has collected over thirty international accolades including an Olivier Award and three Tonys on Broadway.

More2Screen, who is bring the ballet to cinemas, has acted as consultants, producers and worldwide distributors for over 150 ‘special event’ productions to its network of more than 7,000 cinemas in 65+ international territories.

International screenings will begin on 1 April 2019.

For more information and to book cinema tickets visit swanlakecinema.com #SwanLakeCinema

Matthew Bourne’s SWAN LAKE. Photo by Johan Persson 04

Matthew Bourne’s SWAN LAKE. Photo by Johan Persson 03

Matthew Bourne’s SWAN LAKE. Photo by Johan Persson 01

CREDITS

Cast The Swan/The Stranger – Will Bozier The Prince – Liam Mower The Queen – Nicole Kabera The Girlfriend – Katrina Lyndon The Private Secretary – Glenn Graham

Production Director & Choreographer – Matthew Bourne Set & Costumes – Lez Brotherston Lighting Designer – Paule Constable Sound Designer – Ken Hampton

Running time 130 mins

Matthew Bourne’s SWAN LAKE. Will Bozier ‘The Stranger’. Photo by Johan Persson (1)

Matthew Bourne’s SWAN LAKE. Will Bozier ‘The Stranger’ and Shoko Ito ‘Romanian Princess’. Photo by Johan Persson

Matthew Bourne’s SWAN LAKE. Will Bozier ‘The Stranger’ and Freya Field ‘The Girlfriend’. Photo by Johan Persson

Matthew Bourne’s SWAN LAKE. Photo by Johan Persson 02

Matthew Bourne’s SWAN LAKE

Matthew Bourne’s Swan Lake to be screened in cinemas 21 May Matthew Bourne’s Swan Lake will be screened in cinemas in the UK on Tuesday 21 May 2019.

[camcorderrevival]

Costume designs for the Dracula Ballet, done by Lez Brotherston, V&A Museum Collection

1) Lucy / The Bloofer Lady 2) Dr Jack Seward 3) A Female Nosferatu (One of the brides??) 4) Van Helsing 5) Mina Harker 6) Lucy Westenra

[globefan]

From Lez Brotherston - the Romantics Anonymous set in the Sam Wanamaker

[usanewsgoogle]

Bourne's Red Shoes and Khan's Giselle triumph at National Dance awards | Stage

Bourne’s Red Shoes and Khan’s Giselle triumph at National Dance awards | Stage

Zenaida Yanowsky and Liam Riddick take high dancer prizes, whereas Lez Brotherston wins excellent contribution award

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Winner of excellent modern efficiency, feminine: Ashley Shaw in The Red Shoes with Dominic North. Photograph: Tristram Kenton for the Guardian

We know that sure tales and sure archetypes have a powerful maintain on the…

[mariateodoraiancu-blog]

Title: Becoming Other

My Fashion Exploratory project was about the passion, endurance and restriction dedicated in the ballet industry; the theme of constraint bringing the attention. This was demonstrated through the neck piece due to its form (starting just below the neck towards the shoulders) in addition to the materials used; wire being the rudimentary structure of the neck piece. The main intention for choosing wire was in order to emphasize the control and commitment in ballet, by restricting the neck and shoulders. Furthermore, I added squared pieces of paper sewed by hand which were inspired by the swan feathers in order to add the fragility and gracefulness of ballet performances.

Inspiration: Oskar Schlemmer/ Petra Storrs/ Matthew Bourne & Lez Brotherston

Editing software used: Adobe Photoshop CC 2017

Materials used: Wire/ Thin Cardboard/ Sewing Thread

[bournefan]

Lez Brotherston found a bunch of images in his old files of when he and Matthew Bourne were planning the Little Mermaid 15 years ago - here’s the costume designs.

[houndofthe]

by Matthew Bourne and Lez Brotherston

[hayleysprout13]

Romantics Anonymous @ The Globe

REVIEW | The delightful #RomanticsAnonymous playing in the Sam Wanamaker Playhouse @The_Globe.

Kicking off her last season as Artistic Director, Emma Rice has taken the French – Belgian film Les Émotifs Anonymes and adapted it into a stunning musical alongside music and lyrics by Michael Kooman and Christopher Dimond. The show follows two socially awkward, anxious people as they navigate their way in the world through self help tapes, group therapy and lots of chocolate. This brand new…

[biofunmy]

Review: In Matthew Bourne’s ‘Romeo and Juliet,’ a Story of Even More Woe

LONDON — A bright red curtain flutters down. Prokofiev’s ominous chords thunder. The blood-drenched lovers lie entwined on a tombstone. Matthew Bourne shows us the end of the story at the beginning of his powerful, dark “Romeo and Juliet,” which opened at Sadler’s Wells here on Friday. And it’s not a pretty sight.

This “Romeo and Juliet” — the latest in Mr. Bourne’s genre-bridging adaptations of classics like “Swan Lake,” “Sleeping Beauty,” “Car Man” and “The Red Shoes” — doesn’t offer the consolations of sumptuous Renaissance period costuming and décor, the ribald whores and riotous crowds so familiar to dance audiences from ballet versions of the Shakespeare tragedy. Instead, he sets the story in the white-tiled, stark environs of the Verona Institute, populated by teenagers who are strictly policed by guards and medics.

Mr. Bourne brilliantly evokes a world in which the young inmates are patrolled and controlled through medication and punishment, their rigidly synchronized movement underlining their lack of freedom. Lez Brotherston’s simple set emphasizes their incarceration further: a white semicircle with three doors, framed by staircases and a balcony, all enclosed by white fencing.

Juliet (Cordelia Braithwaite) is red-haired and intense, preyed upon and eventually raped by the brutal guard Tybalt (Dan Wright, scarily large and tattooed). Romeo (Paris Fitzpatrick, touchingly fragile) is the twitchy, troubled son of Senator and Mrs. Montague, who are extremely keen to wash their hands of their embarrassing child.

Romeo is hustled into his regulation white sweats by Mercutio and his boyfriend Balthasar, and Benvolio, who form a cavorting trio. (On Friday, Reece Causton, in the role of Mercutio, was injured early on in the show, which had to be halted while his alternate, Ben Brown, rushed to the theater and continued the performance with aplomb; bravo.) This bond among the boys, and its homoeroticism, is one of several instances in which Mr. Bourne nods to ballet versions of “Romeo and Juliet,” particularly the one by Kenneth MacMillan.

As in that ballet, Romeo and Juliet meet at a dance governed by strictly regulated social behaviors and power structures, organized here by the kindly Rev. Bernadette Laurence (Daisy May Kemp), a jolly hockey-sticks version of Shakespeare’s Friar Laurence. And their first rapturous, floor-rolling, limb-entwining, passion-dazed duet — which contains what may be the longest, most acrobatic kiss ever sustained while dancing — finds an intensity equal to the great balcony scene pas de deux.

But in Mr. Bourne’s “Romeo and Juliet,” there are no warring families or feuds to propel the action and the eventual tragedy. Instead there are other forces, particularly resonant ones: mental health and sexual harassment.

Tybalt’s rape of Juliet triggers the chain of disasters. When he later stumbles drunkenly upon the lovers, and betrays his feelings for Juliet, he is mocked by the adolescents. Enraged and humiliated, he pulls out a gun. Mercutio is killed in the fracas, then Tybalt is strangled by the group, with Romeo left to take the blame. The narrative suspense and urgency of these scenes, and the drama of the two men’s deaths to Prokofiev’s thundering drum beats, is astounding theater from Mr. Bourne, offering blazing energy from his terrific cast. (Joining his company, New Adventures, are six pre-professional dancers.)

“Romeo and Juliet” should be a hit for Mr. Bourne. His scenic and choreographic economy of means, wit and detail of movement, skillful deployment of the Prokofiev score (the order of its numbers rearranged) — all are astonishingly good.

But without exterior agents to propel the plot, and with the variables of mental trauma as motivation, the greater resonances of Shakespeare’s tragedy are sacrificed. There is no real causality between the deaths of Mercutio and Tybalt and the deaths of Romeo and Juliet, no sense of the everlasting inability to let go of hatred and fear. Then, in the final scenes, Mr. Bourne takes a disconcerting departure from Shakespeare that changes our sense of the story from tragedy to accident, and of the protagonists from courageous rebels to tormented victims.

Romeo and Juliet

Through Aug. 31 at Sadler’s Wells, London; sadlerswells.com.

Sahred From Source link Arts

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