Elsewhere
Elsewhere
✭✭✭✭✭
by Matthew Bourne, to music by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky
Adventures in Motion Pictures, Dominion Theatre
February 7-March 11, 2000
Before Matthew Bourne’s Swan Lake I had never seen a ballet with as powerful an effect as a play. Normally the plot in a ballet is the least important aspect and is just an excuse for a series of set pieces which do not necessarily further the action. Here, the plot, as re-imagined by Bourne, was totally engrossing, very funny and witty in the first act then veering toward tragedy, as it must, in the second. Act 1 even includes a ballet-within-a-ballet that the Prince, the central figure, attends that completely sends up the conventions of the traditional romantic ballet.
Much has been made of Bourne’s use of male swans, but men in feathery pantaloons look no more like swans than women in tutus. Bourne makes absolutely clear that the swans are creatures of the Prince’s own imagination. Since they are played by men, they represent another side of himself wilder, freer and more aggressive than his life at court allows.
This makes much more sense of the story than any previous choreography I’ve seen and gives the work a psychological depth I never thought it had. What makes the ballet so effective is that not only is it excellently danced, but also excellently acted – better acted in fact that one finds in many plays. I was lucky enough to see Adam Cooper as the Head Swan and the Stranger, Ben Wright as the Prince and Isabel Mortimer as the Queen. Never before have I seen a ballet and thought I ought to go back the next night so I could get more out of it.
©Christopher Hoile
Note: A version of this review appeared in the London Theatre Guide 2000-02-25.
Photo: Adam Cooper as the Head Swan. ©2000 Tristram Kenton.
2000-02-25
London, GBR: Swan Lake