Reviews 2010
Reviews 2010
✭✭✭✭✭
created by Sylvie Guillem, Robert Lepage and Russell Maliphant
Sadler’s Wells, Sony Centre, Toronto
November 18-19, 2010
Eonnagata is an exquisitely beautiful work created by Robert Lepage with dancers Sylvie Guillem and Russell Maliphant. The chance to see any of these three on stage would alone be reason enough to see the show. To see all three together provides a vision of the greatness artists can achieve in collaboration. Eonnagata combines the worlds of dance and theatre so elegantly that the new form they forge becomes the perfect vehicle to explore the nature of duality.
The specific example the piece examines is the life of the Chevalier d’Éon (1728-1810), who lived the first half of his life as a man, the second half as a woman. Under Louis XV of France, d’Éon was sent to spy as a woman on Empress Elizabeth of Russia. On his return he became captain of the dragoons. When treated after a riding accident, a doctor declared that d’Éon was really a woman and he was allowed to live in France only on condition that he live and dress as a woman and forego the privileges he had acquired as a man. In a final twist the autopsy after his death declared he was, in fact, male.
In the title d’Éon’s name is blended with the Japanese word onnagata that refers to the men in the all-male world of kabuki theatre who specialize in female roles. As with theatre and dance, the work and design blend forms from East and West. The gorgeous costumes of the late fashion designer Alexander McQueen brilliantly combine elements of the 18th-century frock coat and farthingale with the kimono and samurai skirt. The show begins with Lepage giving a surprising display of samurai sword-wielding, followed by Guillem in a sensuous dance with fans. Lepage eschews the high-tech paraphernalia of some of his shows for simplicity and ingenuity. Chairs and tables are the only furniture. Swords, fans, poles and plumes transform from scene to scene as symbols of male or female power. A table turned on its side becomes a mirror on each side of which Guillem and Maliphant flawlessly mimic each other’s motions. The table becomes the autopsy table for d’Éon (Lepage) with the overhead lamp swinging between two doctors (Guillem and Maliphant), who shed their medical garb to become simply a female and male dancer, symbols of the vacillations in gender in d’Éon’s life. Guillem and Maliphant’s combination of classical and modern dance is breath-taking, but Lepage’s naturally physical style allows him to fit in perfectly as in a witty trio with all three sliding onto and over separate tables. In form and content, Eonnagata is an inspired celebration of the fullness of a life lived beyond the categories society imposes.
©Christopher Hoile
Note: A version of this review appeared in Eye Weekly 2010-11-19.
Photo: Sylvie Guillem. ©Érick Labbé.
2010-11-19
Eonnagata