THE SLEEPING BEAUTY at Covent Garden - Wakey Wakey!

I think we were very brave returning to Covent Garden as our last visit to The Royal Ballet saw us witness the heartbreak of Steven McRae injured mid-performance during MANON.  Happily  I can report that we counted all the dancers onto the stage and we counted them all off safely.  More importantly, it was a real pleasure to see THE SLEEPING BEAUTY again, still a jewel in the RB's crown.

It has been around for such a long time that quite a few names can claim some ownership of it.  Originally created in 1890 by legendary Russian choreographer Marius Petipa, his original Imperial Ballet production 'bible's were smuggled out of Bolshevik Russia by Nicholas Sergeyev who staged his own production at Sadler's Wells in 1939.

In 1947 Ninette De Valois' Sadler's Wells Ballet company were given the honour of becoming the permanent dance company at Covent Garden - which had been a dance hall during WWII! - and she decided that, to match the building coming back to life, her first production would be Petipa's THE SLEEPING BEAUTY with picture-book designs by Oliver Messel.

De Valois' production stayed in the repertoire for over 20 years then several new productions replaced it until the Dame's was brought back, redirected by then-Royal Ballet Director Monica Mason with Christopher Newton, in 2006 to celebrate the Royal Ballet's 75th Anniversary and it has stayed ever since; however it has since interpolated certain choreographed contributions from Sir Frederick Ashton, Sir Anthony Dowell and Christopher Wheeldon.

As I said it is still going strong - we saw it's 910th performance - but again I find it strange to be seeing a production that is relatively the same as has been done for years; no matter how acclaimed a theatre production, they are rarely revived after more than a year.  It would be nice if someone could look at the tired 'pantomime' actions between the dances; it does rather turn into dance for the deaf with the gesticulations for beauty, sleep etc.

As I said Steven McCrea was injured during the run of MANON so Prince Florimund was danced by Reece Clarke and Akane Takada was off too so Aurora was danced by Fumi Kaneko who really rose to her challenge of the famous Rose Adagio, a dazzling display of movement, balance and stillness as Aurora dances with four visiting princes.

There was fine support from the marvellous Itziar Mendizabal dancing the role of The Lilac Fairy exquisitely, Christine Arestis was very boo-able as the Wicked Fairy Carabosse, and a special mention for James Hay as the always leaping and spinning Bluebird in the finale.  Tchaikovsky's remarkable music sounded lustrous under the baton of Simon Hewitt.

I had been in two minds about seeing THE SLEEPING BEAUTY when it was obvious that Steven McRae would not be dancing but I am glad I did - the many artists who worked down the years to make it created a legendary classic.

DVD/150: LEAVE HER TO HEAVEN (John M. Stahl, 1945)

LEAVE HER TO HEAVEN is an under-appreciated psychological drama which earned Gene Tierney her only Oscar nomination.  Obsession never looked so lustrous...

Author Richard Harland meets Ellen Berendt on a train, unaware they are both guests at the same New Mexico ranch.  Ellen is going to disperse the ashes of her father to whom she was devoted and remarks how similar Richard is to him to her mother and adopted sister Ruth.

Richard is mesmerized by her and cannot say no when Ellen ditches her lawyer fiancee and proposes they get married.

Richard soon discovers that Ellen's obsessive love means nothing can come between them - she watches impassively as Richard's disabled brother drowns, induces a miscarriage when she realizes the baby will take Richard's love; but when Richard dedicates his latest book to Ruth, Ellen strikes..

Leon Shamoy's Oscar-winning cinematography makes this the most luminous Film Noir ever.

Shelf or charity shop?  This lives in the plastic storage box where all the bad girls are... solid support from Cornel Wilde, Jeanne Crain and Vincent Price are eclipsed by the ice-cold magnificence of Gene Tierney's Ellen, one of the great screen villainesses.

BALLET BLACK at Stratford East / HANSARD at Lyttelton - Bite-size Theatre

Constant Reader, you will know that I have an ongoing bloggy-thing where I will review my dvds in exactly 150 words - my last one was Vivien Leigh's 1948 ANNA KARENINA - so I figured as the last two theatrical entertainments back-to-back would last about the length of a proper show I would do the same thing to blog about them:

First off the rank: BALLET BLACK at Stratford East

I passed on seeing Ballet Black this year as they performed the same day as Madonna's MADAME X was released... and you know, priorities.  So, as Owen liked them, we went to see them at Stratford East.  We usually see musicals there so it was good to see a dance production although we both felt the works were compromised by the stage's width.

The first piece was called PENDULUM, created in 2009, which was aptly titled as the choreography see-sawed between Sayaka Ichikawa and Mthuthuzeli November but I preferred the zoot-suited snap and sass of Sophie Laplane's ensemble piece CLICK which showcased the remarkable Isabela Coracy, resplendent in yellow.

INGOMA, choreographed by Mthuthuzeli November and based on a South Africa miner's strike in 1946, impressed with it's sombre intensity and it was well-danced by José Alves and Ichikawa, but I came away quietly impressed rather than intensely moved.

 

The next sliver of theatre was HANSARD at the Lyttelton Theatre, a debut play from actor-turned-playwright Simon Woods.

1988: Tory MP Robin Hesketh returns to his Cotswolds home for his birthday but finds his wife Diana in a combative mood: she reveals she knows that he has spent time out of the office allegedly with her and she wants answers.

30 years of marriage evaporate as Diana rips Robin's conservative government's values to shreds while delighting in ridiculing Thatcher; Robin responds with jibes about her excessive drinking and her slovenliness.

But The Thing They Don't Talk About is finally revealed through Diana's hatred of the newly-introduced Clause 28... can you guess what it is?  Woods' play - while full of cutting putdowns - was like watching a mash-up of David Hare and Edward Albee - WHO'S AFRAID OF MARGARET THATCHER anyone?  The middle-class audience laughed at all the jokes about Etonions and scruffy Labour leaders.

Alex Jennings and Lindsay Duncan are excellent but deserve a less obvious play.

50 Favourite Musicals: 9: LITTLE SHOP OF HORRORS (1982) (Alan Menkin, Howard Ashman)

The 50 shows that have stood out down the years and, as we get up among the paint cards, the shows that have become the cast recording of my life:

First performed: 1982, Orpheum Theatre, NY

First seen by me: 1983, Comedy Theatre, London

Productions seen: three
  
Score: Alan Menkin / Howard Ashman

Book: Howard Ashman

Plot: At Mushnik's Skid Row Florists, Seymour has an unrequited love for his co-worker, the sweet-natured but dumb blonde Audrey.  In a desperate attempt to entice customers, Mushnik allows Seymour to display a weird plant, that appeared suddenly during a total eclipse, that Seymour calls Audrey II.  Seymour cuts his finger and discovers Audrey II responds to drops of blood.  Audrey II comes to life and offers Seymour all he has ever wanted in life as long as it keeps being fed blood.. anybody's blood...

Five memorable numbers: SUDDENLY SEYMOUR, LITTLE SHOP OF HORRORS, SOMEWHERE THAT'S GREEN, SKID ROW, DENTIST!

Back in the September of 1983 I was bereft as my favourite obsession - Richard Eyre's production of GUYS AND DOLLS at the Olivier Theatre - had lost most of it's glorious cast; G&D was the show that gave me the Pauline conversion to the glory of theatre and I was faced with that aching reality of loving a show... all things must come to an end.  No more Julia McKenzie, John Normington, Bill Paterson, David Healy or Harry Towb.  The good news was that Harry Towb was going straight into a new musical at the Comedy Theatre called LITTLE SHOP OF HORRORS.  Being a film buff I knew of the 1960 Roger Corman comedy-thriller film so I went along to see a preview with an idea what I was going to see but primarily to see 'Uncle' Harry.  I reeled out of the Comedy a few hours later, with a new musical obsession!

One of the pleasures looking back on theatre memories is you can identify great performances as they stand out down the years, and I am proud that I can say I saw Ellen Greene as Audrey onstage.  It was a truly remarkable performance - as two-dimensional as a cartoon, but played with sudden depths of feeling and emotion to make her a totally lovable, totally original creation.  And that voice... soft as a fake-fur coat when she sang her longing ballad SOMEWHERE THAT'S GREEN and the power seen during her moments in SKID ROW was let loose during the huge duet SUDDENLY SEYMOUR when poor Barry James as Seymour had to hang on to the set for his life when she released the full belt in the line "He don't condescennnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnd" was one of the great theatre moments I have seen (and felt).  Barry James was a delightfully endearing schlubb as Seymour, the thrillingly deep evil of Michael Leslie's baritone voice made Audrey II fully come alive and Terence Hillyer was a hoot in his various characters but mainly as Orin Scrivello - DDS - the sadistic dentist boyfriend of Audrey who deservedly became the first victim in Audrey II's jaws.  Popping up throughout the show were the holy trinity of Nicola Blackman, Dawn Hope and Shezwae Powell as Chiffon, Crystal and Ronette, three urchins who invited us into the show and sang us out to our doom as Audrey II's tentacles landed on our heads as their last note ended.  And 'Uncle' Harry?  He was glorious of course, holding the show steady with his stage experience and comic timing.  Howard Ashman's tight direction - tight as Audrey II's jaw-snap - his genuinely witty script and delicious 60s retro-score with Alan Menkin made the show absolutely irresistible.

Again the spectre of theatre-going descended as one by one the original cast left - and while the show was still enjoyable in itself, the magic of that original cast dissipated over it's near-two year run.  Memories of a naff touring production starring Su Pollard were luckily swept away by Matthew White's Menier production which gave Sheridan Smith a great showcase for her comedy and musical talents, and she was well partnered by Paul Keating as Seymour and, in a nice touch, Barry James as Mushnik.  I couldn't bring myself to see the recent revival which looked over-stated and under-cast, when you have seen the best you really have to curate your memories to keep them fresh.  Of course, Ellen Greene managed to preserve her Audrey in the 1986 film version, after a long wait when Cyndi Lauper was considered, but although it has a cult following - and the fantastic Levi Stubbs of The Four Tops voicing the killer plant - if you had seen the original stage production, it's pace is leaden and obvious.

Happily for posterity - and me - Ellen's rendition of SOMEWHERE THAT'S GREEN was filmed for the 1983 Standard Drama Awards show where the show won Best Musical, so here she is mixing the comic and the pathos for an unforgettable experience, attended by the trio of Nicola Blackman, Shezwae Powell and Dawn Hope.

Dvd/150: ANNA KARENINA (Julien Duvivier, 1948)

This was the seventh screen version of Tolstoy's classic - another nine were to follow!

Thirteen years after Garbo's MGM version, Duvivier's film repeats several of it's problems: turgid pace, an overly-opulent design and an actress caught between a miscast Vronsky and perfect Karenin.

This was Vivien Leigh's first film in three years; she had endured a serious mental breakdown after a miscarriage but had recovered to appear onstage as Sabina in Thornton Wilder's allegorical comedy THE SKIN OF OUR TEETH under Laurence Olivier's direction.  Her Anna is beautifully delicate and tragic but an inner fire is missing.

Kieron Moore as Vronsky is resoundingly dull but Ralph Richardson as Karenin is at his dry, unfeeling best.

The compensations include Cecil Beaton's costumes, the cinematography and Martita Hunt as Princess Betty and while Vivien - and the film - do rise to a haunting ending, by then it has almost run out of steam.

Shelf or charity shop?  A shelf for Vivien alone..

Dvd/150: THE LADY EVE (Preston Sturges, 1941)

Preston Sturges' scintillating screwball comedy has the confidence to take it's time with it's pace giving Barbara Stanwyck and Henry Fonda room to fully develop their characters.

Con artists Jean Harrington and her father Charles are delighted that Charles Pike, heir to a brewing company, is also aboard their ship.  Shy, snake-expert Charles is returning from a year-long Amazon expedition so Jean's full-on attack has him literally head-over-heels in love.

But just as Jean realizes she really is in love with Charles, he has discovered who the Harringtons are and he rejects her.

Undeterred, Jean joins another con-artist masquerading as an English lord to get invited to Charles' family mansion as newly-arrived Lady Eve Sidwich.

Charles cannot believe Jean would be so brazen to play him again so literally falls for Lady Eve and proposes marriage - and that's when the real trouble starts!

Shelf or charity shop?  The fizzy combination of Barbara Stanwyck's delicious performance, Henry Fonda's willingness to play the innocent fool and the delightful support from Charles Coburn as Jean's father, Eric Blore as the fake English lord and William Demerest as Charles' no-nonsense bodyguard make this one I want to keep - it will stay in DVD limbo, kept in a paper sleeve in a plastic storage box!

Dvd/150: VOLVER (Pedro Almodóvar, 2006)

VOLVER glows with warmth and colour thanks to six phenomenal actresses who jointly won the Best Actress Award at Cannes.  'Volver' means 'to return' and here Almodóvar returns to Carmen Maura, the subject of mothers and daughters and the need for ghosts.. 

Sisters Raimunda and Sole regularly visit their La Mancha birthplace to tend their parent's grave who died in a fire three years previously and visit their frail aunt Paula, but she tells them their mother Irene's ghost is there looking after her.

Back in Madrid, Raimunda's daughter stabs her father when he attempts rape. Raimunda hides his body in the freezer of an empty restaurant that she has access to, later opening the restaurant to make extra cash. 

Sole attends Aunt Paula's funeral only to discover Irene's ghost is in the house; imagine her shock when she returns to Madrid and discovers Irene hidden in her car boot...

Shelf or charity shop?  An absolute keeper - Almodóvar's excellent cinematic storytelling deftly moves from supernatural family drama through comedy to a genuinely profound meditation on love, loss and the power of forgiveness.  The film is dominated by three remarkable performances: Penélope Cruz is luminous as Raimunda, Carmen Maura is glorious as Irene and Blanca Portillo is heartbreaking as the secretive, grieving village neighbour Agustina; there is wonderful support from Lola Duenas as Sole, Yohana Cobo as Raimona's daughter Paula and the wonderful Chus Lampreave who steals her one scene as frail Aunt Paula.  A special mention to Alberto Iglesias' excellent score.