Roméo et Juliette Brings us a Streamlined, minimalist, Gothic Affair filled with "Magic Realism" and moments of unintended humor.
It's interesting how a person can watch/experience or ingest almost exactly the same thing, whether it be a movie, a play, a ballet, or even a sandwich and come away with a completely different experience than before. Last time I sat through RetJ, on a small-screen in the middle of the pandemic, I remembered it being a broader, almost mocking, sarcastic, comedic thing. I remember focusing on the adventures of these teenagers, with their teenage senses of humor and their over-active libidos on the edge of explosion; and I remembered Nursie as being very weird and that her choreography was well,… just strange, almost like a Commedia dell’arte stereotype, making "no sense to a contemporary viewer without some thought that–a bit of information was missing from us in order to make head or tails of her character and her choreography." And I remember enjoying the fact that at least this version of Romeo and Juliet had lots of sex and lactating booby jokes for everyone to enjoy!"
This time, however, I was left with the overriding sense of this ballet being a kind of death march, a trail of tears, I was left with the feeling that the Capulets seemed very dark, very Goth and that perhaps we are all now a little bit dark, a little dour, soured by a faith that has led us down a very specific primrose path--one that we can no longer escape from and that now, our own inevitabilities are facing us in our collective mirrors.
Many of the characters in this version, this iteration-I should say, as they are all the same characters, throughout the multiverses of Roméo's and Juliettes, are presented to us in the broadest of swipes, as caricatures or as a set of gestures. A few of these, however, who are given more to chew on include Jonathan Batista's Tybalt, the Friar Laurence played excellently by Christopher D'Ariana and Clara Ruf Maldonado's Juliette, who here, especially gives us a performance that at times, while not out of place, presents us a heightened level of pain and pathos that makes this very much into her story and in a nod that almost reminds this reviewer of the Nouvelle Vague films of the fifties and the later Surrealist films of Luis Bunuel, takes an incisive razor-sharp machete's–cut into the heart of society's desire to lie to itself in order to pretend that we are not all just savages on the brink of jumping into the arms of anarchy.
At the same time, Jean-Christophe Maillot brings a 1990's, post-modern sensibility to the choreography that seems tinged with an almost Latine magical realism that does feel, at times out of place in the state of things--and muddies this inciteful precision and at times makes this a ballet that is at odds with itself.
PNB’s Roméo et Juliette is, ultimately a mix of layers of broad comedy, titty jokes, classicism, odd stylism and unflinching pathos laid upon a tale as old as time. All of these varying and jarring contrasts end up creating a cacophony of differences that is more like reality than one might expect. This interplay creates a sense of urgency and painful irony that mingles and tangles itself up inside the modern--almost-contemporary choreography stretching the bounds of its classic narrative structure creating a mocking tension that highlights the unstoppable dilemma that threatens the lives of our star-crossed lovers.
In general, when we think of the Pas de Deux–we think of the dance as a romantic interlude
between a couple or romantic leads, but here we are presented with an amazing
extended dance between characters that come from two very different worlds, being
of different ages and bearing different points of view that are
completely at odds–though it seems almost impossible to begin to understand
just what it is that Friar Laurence is up to in all his religiosity and
scheming--and while, at times, his magical, Obi-Wan Kenobi antics seem almost silly--the dance between Juliet Capulet (Clara Ruf Maldonado) and the friar (Christopher D'Ariano),
virtually steals the show, presenting us with two different
realities, that like Sophocles’ Antigone and Creon cannot communicate their
situations or avoid the tragedies that lay ahead of them–one more physical,
mortal and immediate–the other more metaphysical, abstract and moral.
When these two characters and actors come together the stage explodes with a
magic that is lacking in most of the rest of the ballet. Ultimately, I have to add, that the moments between the Friar and Juliette have more power and magic than any
of the scenes between the actual lovers Roméo and Juliet.
**
Pacific Northwest Ballet soloist Christopher D’Ariano (center) as Friar Laurence, with corps de ballet dancers Noah Martzall and Ryan Cardea, in Jean-Christophe Maillot’s Roméo et Juliette, onstage at Seattle Center’s McCaw Hall April 11 – 20, 2025. (Streaming for digital subscribers April 24 – 28.) For tickets and information, contact the PNB Box Office, 206.441.2424 or PNB.org. Photo © Angela Sterling.
**
In fact, this whole production, this play, this ballet, is completely owned by Juliette, with or without Roméo, or any other man or woman she interacts with and in the final analysis, Jean-Christophe Maillot’s Roméo et Juliette is truly her story! Everyone else is just a player.
Even Roméo presented
aptly enough by Lucien Postelwaite ends up completely sidelined and stumbles
painfully toward his inevitable end, while Juliet brings out the reality and the pain of a
real woman trapped in an impending horror film ending that she cannot escape (sound familiar)–no
matter how hard she tries. It is this animal caught in a trap sensation
that brings her naturalized movements so much power, when she takes a step, for
example–she really takes a step, she is seen not acting, but rather these are
the hyper-real emotions of a woman very much on the verge of the end of
everything that she holds dear, not just her life, but everything, all because
some callow, young, privileged male has decided that he is in love with her and
ignores everything in order to consummate his love–a love, which, in this case,
brings with it–a death sentence.
In the final analysis Jean-Christophe Maillot’s Roméo et Juliette is a set of texts at war with themselves. Comedy, tragedy, masculinity vs. femininity, individuality vs. hegemony and the pull of conformity, libido versus religion, it’s all there, but ultimately in this version of the ballet, in this iteration, in this telling it is the contraposition between the realism presented in the post-modern choreography of the dancers that here, creates the most meaning as it careers headfirst into the unrealism of the story, the easily stereotyped characters and the traditionally, classically inspired score. It is almost punk in the powerful, take-no prisoners way that the text deconstructs itself, still, at the end of the ballet, it is almost as if the well-known narrative, these overpowering hegemonic forces reassert themselves and everything falls apart just as we expect it to, actually more than likely–at some level, demand it to. Romeo, with accent or not sees what appears to be a dead Juliette or Juliet or any of a number of names on an infinitude of infinite earths and takes his life–in turn, she awakes all too soon and sees his dead and prostrate corpse and…well, you know the rest of the story. It never changes. As much as we and Juliette might hope it would. And as it might in an alternate universe full of happy-endings.
Comments
Post a Comment