New ballets are risky endeavours, requiring significant investment in talent, time and money. Yet do classical companies give them the best chance to shine? Performance Monkey asks companies around the world about previews, rehearsals and revivals. How do you create a ballet with legs? One that will appeal to audiences, satisfy dancers and find a lasting toehold in the repertoire? The question … [Read more...]
All in the acting
You might think someone who had spent a hefty proportion of their evenings in the theatre, at the movies, in front of TV dramas or news broadcasts of politicians might have a few ideas of what acting is about. But, like many audience members, I still consider it a little bit of magic. The alchemy of turning second-hand words into first-hand emotion. You might also think that a theatre critic … [Read more...]
Change the world, one hero at a time
From dude to dodo is a trick of vowels and imagination. Maybe, if we’re tired of seeing men dominate our stages, we need to exercise our imaginations, especially when it comes to casting. Unexpectedly, Shakespeare is leading the way. Shakespeare productions swapped gender from the word go, with the all-male Elizabethan companies. Sarah Bernhardt, Angela Winkler and Frances de la Tour have since … [Read more...]
Coming into land
Shouldn’t ballet have previews? Wouldn’t it help dancers and choreographers alike? As with most bad things, the money says no. Ballets have short runs, so you slap ’em on stage and get reviews and publicity whirring at the earliest opportunity. Good for box office and bar takings, but how about the art? A triple bill by a living choreographer is a rarity at the Royal Ballet, usually only … [Read more...]
History boy
There are productions I’ve never seen that are burned onto my brain. As a teenage Shakespeare geek, I devoured books on stage history, describing landmark productions staged long before I was born. I read reviews and memoirs, saw the same few photos. Sally Beauman’s heartfelt history of the RSC was my bedtime reading (still is, sometimes). Last month John Wyver curated a season of films of RSC … [Read more...]
Vanishing act
Dance: such a fragile artform. Written in bodies, tucked in memories, if it isn’t seen, it dies. I was reminded of this melancholy fact by two recent reports. First, the Swedish choreographer Mats Ek appeared to announce that he was calling a halt both to new work and to revivals of his pieces, as he wasn’t prepared either to supervise them personally or let them proceed without him. It was a … [Read more...]
Sad face
As a child, I was never afraid of the dark. I don’t mean actual nighttime (you don’t achieve inky darkness in light-spilling London). But cruelty, sorrow, isolation: these thread their way through many of the best children’s books, reaching out a hand to the solitary reader in his ladybird dressing gown and first pair of glasses. That doesn’t mean gloom-drenched stories. Quite the reverse. My … [Read more...]
New old, same old
The Beggar's Opera and Dead Dog in a Suitcase The world has grown old. There are no new stories, no new songs. We stick to what we know. Comfort-binge legends of sweet romance and poetic justice. Inarguable hard truths of self-serving cruelty. This is the genius of John Gay’s Beggar’s Opera, and of Dead Dog in a Suitcase, the inspired new version by theatre company Kneehigh. Gay, writing … [Read more...]
War games
It was more than weird to come home on Wednesday night and find MPs voting on British military action in Syria. I had just seen scenes from an earlier conflict, mediated through the giddy solemnity of toy theatre. The Battle of Waterloo by JH Amherst, an improbable meeting of reportage and melodrama, was staged in London in 1824. An eye-popper with real horses and highly painted scenery, it was … [Read more...]
This is what we know
What will your death be like? Probably not like this. Blank, seen in the Bush Theatre’s recent RADAR Festival, is a semi-improvised piece by Nassim Soleimanpour. A one-time-only performer receives a script full of blanks, the key words are missing. Some blanks the performer fills; others are solicited from the audience; and a volunteer is selected to add details from their own biography. When I … [Read more...]