I did not get a chance to see Matthew Bourne's Swan Lake when it originally appeared on Broadway in 1998. I was excited to hear that the tour would bring the show back for a limited engagement at New York City Center. The show feels fresh and transgressive, even 12 years later.
This is not your typical ballet. Combining modern dance, lavish production, comedy, and pantomime Matthew Bourne creates a wholly re-imagined version of Tchaikovsky's late-19th Century ballet. The show features no dialogue, but is so expertly danced, staged, and pantomimed that you can imagine exactly what each character sounds like. Add to all this a bare-chested, aggressive, all-male corps of swans and it becomes very clear that this is not your traditional (stodgy) ballet.
The cast we saw was quite good, although I imagine it wasn't quite what it must have been on Broadway 12 years ago. The dancers were fairly strong, but sometimes seemed just a little off. For instance, the dancer playing the Girlfriend looked little too old for the role, but she still created a character so vivid that I could hear her accent in my mind. Any quibbles I had were relatively minor and did not detract from the power of the expressive choreography and production design. I also had the feeling that the entire cast was performing with every fiber of their being which makes it difficult to not feel engaged and entranced by any production.
There was another element that really made me engage with this show on a deeper level. I saw this production after a wave of anti-gay violence and suicide here in the city and across the country and I think it brought the themes of the show into even sharper focus. The Prince, after dancing and falling in love with the swan, is mocked and rejected when he makes an attempt to woo the young von Rothbart (a man, danced by the same dancer who plays the lead swan). His rejection by young von Rothbart (aka The Swan) and the attacks and insults of the members of the royal court clearly causes The Prince great emotional distress. In the final scene, the conflicted/dejected/depressed Prince is shown confined to an asylum where he is attacked and tormented by the corps of swans who also attack his lover, the lead Swan. This eventually leads to the Prince killing himself. His mother, the Queen, sobs when she discovers his body. The show ends with a tableau of the Prince and his lead Swan together (finally) in death. In the wake of the tragic suicide of Rutger's student Tyler Clementi the themes of anti-gay violence, homophobia, and the sense of isolation many gay teens feel really stood out for me. Matthew Bourne's Swan Lake is a powerful show on its own, but its relevancy to current tragedies really made it even more thought-provoking for me.
This is a very engaging production and well worth seeing before its limited run ends on November 7, 2010.
Want to see for yourself? Click here for tickets.
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