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Swan Lake
Directed & Choreographer by Matthew Bourne
Set and costume design by Lez Brotherston
Produced by Broadway In Chicago
At the Cadillac Palace Theatre
151 W. Randolph
Chicago, IL
Call 312-902-1400, tickets $15 - $72.50
Wednesday, February 22 at 7:30 PM
Thursday, February 23 at 7:30 PM
Friday, February 24 at 8 PM
Saturday, February 25 at 2 & 8 PM
Sunday, February 26 at 2 & 7:30 PM
Running time is 2 hrs, 30 min with intermission
Swan Lake leaps and twirls into our hearts.
Matthew Bourne’s Swan Lake is deconstructed ballet, an abstract surreal dance piece that boldly attacks the concept of classic ballet with the all-male swans, bare-chested instead of female swans in white tutus. Bourne uses the tremendous, lively Tchaikovsky score (written in 1877) and the basic theme of the Bolshoi’s ballet---a story about the overwhelming need for an unattainable ideal. This intoxicating show is a blend of ballet movement, modern dance with sprinkles of comedy and satire with gobs of spectacle that grabs us from the start and carries us into the dreams of the young prince.
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Avid ballet patrons my take offense at Matthew Bourne’s reinvention as too radical, too sexual and too modern; I’m just think his Swan Lake was a wonderful piece of theatre. Filled with strong emotions, fluid movement and an empathetic lead character, Swan Lake is an intense psychological dramatic dance piece filled with complex themes told in exquisite detail. The visual design (set and costumes by Lez Brotherston) together with the rousing Tchaikovsky score (too bad economics forced the use of canned music) gives Swan Lake a visceral feel.
Bourne’ Swan Lake skates time barriers in act one. It goes from a 1950’s royal household where the young prince (Sam Plant) has a nightmare and dreams of a macho male swan. The prince seeks to be loved but his cold mother is void of emotion. He attends a ‘ballet-within-a-ballet (in a delicious campy satire of traditional ballet) but his unfulfilled desires haunt him.
Once he grows up, his yearning to find himself, his sexual identify and his basic need for affection drive him toward suicide. After drinking at a Soho bar (circa 1960’s), he realizes that he can’t sustain intimacy. His angst and his sexual frustration depress him deeply. He decides to drown himself in the park swan lake but the macho large swan (Alan Vincent) catches his eye and as the other swans threaten him, the swan fights them off protecting the prince. The prince kisses the swan as the he come to grips and accepts his homosexuality. Bourne’s use of an all-male swans works nicely as a refreshing take on the classic ballet.
In act two, the prince joins the royal court and acquires a girl friend but a stranger (dressed in leather and a dead-ringer for ‘his’ swan) barges in to the ball and sensually seduces most of the women resulting in an accident that leaves his girlfriend dead driving him toward despondency as his mental health wanes.
The third act finds the prince being treated for mental illness that eventually leads him to once more dream of the swan as his mental condition worsens. The swans successfully attack his swan, killing him. The prince then dies of a broken heart. His cold mother finally shows emotions as she discovers him dead. She sees the swan carrying the prince away in the final scene.
This highly expressive dance piece was breathtaking and diverse as it conveyed the prince’s fantasy. This show is so much more than merely a classic ballet; it contains many different and interesting dance styles that were deftly performed by an energetic, polished ensemble. Again, I’m just learning to appreciate ballet so I can’t describe nor analyze the movements. What I can say is that these dances told the story with enough emotional intensity to stimulate my imagination. I was thoroughly captivated by such precise visual candy that worked well with the powerful score that I’m quickly gravitating to sophisticated dance phenomena like Matthew Bourne’s Swan Lake.
Try this fast paced spectacle, you’ll like it.
Recommended
Tom Williams
Tom99@chicagocritic.com for comments
Talk Theatre in Chicago Radio show
February 21, 2006
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