Okay, Possums, I assume that most of you are sophisticated enough to know the difference between admiring an aesthetic dance performance and lusting after a drop-dead gorgeous dancer. I am, too, though I may not always sound like it. The point is that, just because some bare-chested, hunky piece of beef has ignited our flame, it doesn't necessarily mean he can really dance or, in this case, really act. He may just be good at being beautiful. Nothing wrong with that.
I bring this up because of an experience I had at Matthew Bourne's Swan Lake, which opened at the Orpheum Theatre last week. I had seen it and loved it a decade ago in Los Angeles, and therein lies the reason for the above disclaimer. The roles of "The Swan" and "The Stranger," conceived by Bourne when he revamped the story-line to Tchaikovsky's immortal ballet (without altering the music, except to employ a reduced orchestration suitable for touring) are analogous to the original "Swan Queen" (Odette) and her evil alter-ego, the "Black Swan" (Odile). If you don't know that, and you haven't read the program, Bourne's Act Three is not going to make a lot of sense.
What I missed this time that was so memorable in LA was that painful recognition of the damage the Stranger (Black Swan) does by flaunting his sexuality (mostly hetero, which is double agony for the conflicted Prince). This is because Alan Vincent, who danced the Swan and Stranger opening night, is more convincing as the compassionate Swan. Who wouldn't want to be carried away in his arms in the last-act apotheosis? Yet in Act Three, where Bourne cleverly characterizes the foreign princesses and hangers-on (I thought I spotted Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt), the Stranger was just a randy guy in leather who charmed everyone by dancing up a storm.
In the Los Angeles version, I saw Will Kemp, a slender, young dancer who looked dangerous in leather and who practiced a kind of emotional sadism that was as charismatic as it was painful. While dancing with the girls and making up to the Queen Mother, Kemp never took his eyes off the Prince, who seemed skewered on red-hot darts of jealousy. Thus, while it was possible to dismiss Bourne's facile psychology (overbearing, oversexed mothers cause homosexuality?), it was not possible to dismiss the universal truth of this act. Sexual jealousy is the most painful emotion there is, and few of us are strong enough to withstand it. By making it so central to the act, Kemp upped the ante on Bourne's concept. I say this with full understanding that if you felt the Prince's helpless, agonized rage because you were turned on by Vincent, then you had the same experience I had in Los Angeles (and didn't have here), and we can move on.
Fuss & bother
I am not that crazy about his other classical transformations (we've seen The Car Man and Nutcracker! in Berkeley), but I believe that Matthew Bourne's Swan Lake is one of the more important dance-theater artifacts of the late 20th century. A couple of people asked me what all the fuss was about. Men in feathered tights pretending to be swans? La-di-da! That's missing the point with a vengeance. Bourne's movement vocabulary may be so small that true balletomanes get easily bored, but as a director, he gets directly at emotional truth.
Though there is no dialogue, the hissing swans are perfect. (And perfectly scary.) They are not little disguised princesses, floating serenely on a pond. They are aggressive, nasty, hyper-masculine birds. That they would turn on their leader when he seems to want to rescue a human makes perfect sense, though no one, not Petipa, Helgi Tomasson nor Bourne can stage a coherent finale to all that repetitive, though fabulous music. Yet I wouldn't call Bourne "unmusical." He rescues a dramatic number (that doesn't even appear in most recordings) to create a sick-and-sexy pas de deux for the Prince (Neil Penlington) and his mother (Saranne Curtin). He gives the Prince an unwanted Girlfriend (delightful Leigh Daniels), who embarrasses the Royal Family at a parody ballet (set to the Act One pas de trois), a complete invention that is as amusing as the Trockadero parodies.
Bourne provides a disco dance for the "Danse de coupes" in Act One — and I swear conductor Earl Stafford of the Royal Winnipeg Ballet managed to get a Bee Gees beat into the segment. There is lots of humor, yet the serious parts — if you believe in them — are more grimly heavy-hitting than any ballet you'll ever see outside Antony Tudor. Without preaching about "tolerance," without making his satire too raunchy, and by creating a love story as romantic as it is tragic, Bourne has created a "gay" show that allows for almost any kind of interpretation. Is the Prince closeted? Is he crazy? Is he having a bad dream? Or does this beautiful, powerful, feathered creature who wants to dance with him release him from his agony and let him exist in eternal bliss, where he needn't answer to any morality but his own heart? Yes.