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Times
2 days ago
- Entertainment
- Times
A Single Man review — can dance do justice to this gay classic?
The choreographer Jonathan Watkins's ambitious new dance-and-song adaptation of Christopher Isherwood's 1964 gay literary classic A Single Man, which also became an acclaimed movie starring Colin Firth, has is full of dualities. For starters, he has pulled off a double-casting coup. From the classical realm is Ed Watson, former principal dancer at the Royal Ballet and one of the most distinctive talents to come out of that institution during the past quarter-century. Jonathan Goddard has demonstrated equally stellar skills in a slew of abstract and narrative-based contemporary dance performance for about as long. For anyone familiar with their work the prospect of seeing the pair on stage — and playing lovers, no less — is frankly mouth-watering. The actual result in this co-commission by the Royal Ballet and the Manchester International Festival, however, is problematic. Set over a 24-hour period in sun-drenched southern California circa the early 1960s, and in the wake of the Cuban Missile Crisis, Isherwood's novel is a highly internalised account of the dissociation experienced by George, a middle-aged English professor mourning the untimely loss of his lover Jim. Throughout the day George's encounters with a handful of people — including students, one of whom sparks an attraction, and a close female friend (the excellent Kristen McNally) — test his feelings of loss, longing and alienation. Will he cling to grief, memories and fantasies or instead embrace life? Watkins's two-act take on Isherwood's slippery, restrained text is never less than intelligently considered. His boldest decision was to split the character of George in two. For the initial run of performances in Manchester, it is Watson who, with one exception, embodies him. (Goddard plays George at this Saturday's matinee and, when the production transfers to the Royal Opera House in September, he and Watson alternate in the role.) George's mind and thoughts, meanwhile. are mellifluously voiced by the singer-songwriter John Grant, a burly figure occupying a central area of Chiara Stephenson's striking, object-adorned split-level set. • Read more theatre reviews, guides and interviews Further carried along musically by Jasmin Kent Rodgman's lyrical original score, played live by the five-piece Manchester Collective, and featuring a capable supporting ensemble of dancers, A Single Man is sensitively attuned to the anxious, homophobic time and hedonistic place in which it is set. It helps that Goddard and Watson's dancing is shot through with grace, tenderness and lust. But Grant's songs sometimes tip over into banality, while the work overall is both curiously emotionally muted yet, ultimately, overly sentimental. We watch George lecture, shop, visit the gym. We sense the underlying ache, especially when Watson doubles over breaking into sobs. But Watkins's desire to offer George — and us — a redemptive glimmer of hope feels shallow, even sugary. There are things to admire here, but this production is an exceptionally mixed affair.★★★☆☆115minAviva Studios, Manchester, to Jul 6, Linbury Theatre, Royal Opera House, London, Sep 8-20, @timesculture to read the latest reviews
Telegraph
2 days ago
- Entertainment
- Telegraph
A Single Man: This Christopher Isherwood adaptation is a crashing disappointment
This dance adaptation of Christopher Isherwood 's 1964 novel A Single Man – which is having its world premiere at the Manchester International Festival, and transfers to London in September – came to the stage on a wave of great promise and expectation. The piece is adapted, choreographed and directed by Jonathan Watkins, whose past work includes Northern Ballet's celebrated staging of George Orwell's 1984. A packed house in The Hall (the largest auditorium in Aviva Studios) on opening night spoke to the hope that Watkins would bring a similar emotional intensity to Isherwood's tale of grief and forbidden gay love as he did to Orwell's novel. Sad to say, however, this co-production between The Royal Ballet and Factory International does not enjoy the confident conception and consistent execution of the earlier piece. Like Isherwood's book, this modern ballet traces a day in the life of George – a professor in literature in Los Angeles – who is grieving the recent loss of his lover, Jim. Watkins's adaptation opens on a set (by designer Chiara Stephenson, known for her collaborations with Lorde, Björk and SZA) that spells out in pronounced literality the themes of the two hours to come. A huge, grey, metallic frame around the stage exhibits the paraphernalia of George's day, from tennis rackets to domestic utensils. Built into this construction, and illuminated in neon outline, are the professor's body and – in a massive silhouette at the heart of the set – his head. From the body emerges excellent dancer Ed Watson, who gives physical expression to George's experience. On a raised platform inside the head – and representing the grieving academic's mind – is American singer and musician John Grant. The thudding obviousness of this setup serves as a warning for the ballet to come. As Watson's George progresses through his day, he seizes on anything – the energy of a tennis match, the optimism of his young students – that offers a counterbalance to the profound grief that ushers him towards death. As he does so, Grant stands up at regular intervals to give vocal expression – in songs of his own devising – to the bereft professor's thoughts. However, whether they are in prose or rhyme, the singer's lyrics are characterised by a defiantly unpoetic, often conversational language that is, more often than not, crashingly prosaic. Grant's contribution – which is elevated both literally and figuratively – does Isherwood's prose a disservice: such is its colossal prominence that it all but subsumes the choreography itself. The dance – which unfolds in period garb (in the body scenes) and ugly, blotchy abstraction (representing the mind) – is often drearily mimetic. But it is touching in its expressions of love and anguish during the scenes in which George remembers his life with Jim (who is danced beautifully by Jonathan Goddard). Composer Jasmin Kent Rodgman's original score – which is performed live – shifts pleasingly between the cinematically jazzy and the influence of American minimalist composers Philip Glass and Steve Reich. Sadly, however, her music is the strongest suit in a new ballet that promised much, but disappoints greatly, not least in its choreographic unevenness and its misconceived use of song.
The Guardian
2 days ago
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
A Single Man review – homoerotic tennis enlivens ballet version of Isherwood's classic
It makes total sense for choreographer-director Jonathan Watkins to turn George, the central figure of Christopher Isherwood's 1964 novel A Single Man, into a double person. Isherwood's point of departure is the profound sense of dissociation induced by grief, and in casting a dancer, former Royal Ballet principal Ed Watson, as George's body, and singer-songwriter John Grant as his mind, Watkins at a stroke shows us his riven, dislocated self: Watson on the ground, Grant raised on a platform, motion and music operating on different planes. If Grant's voice is always fluent, even mellifluous, moving from low growl through easy baritone and even up to eerie countertenor, Watson's body begins blocked – all angle and effort, no flow. On one level, the piece is the story of its unblocking, through the reawakening of desire: there's a tennis match that morphs into homoerotic fantasy; there are passionate memories of his dead lover Jim (Jonathan Goddard); a drunken evening with old friend Charley (Kristen McNally), who has desires of her own; and finally a baptismal night-swimming escapade with a student, Kenny (James Hay), that plunges George back into the waters of life. On another level, it is an enactment of Isherwood's main plot points as he recounts a day in the life of a university teacher – though here, you might do well to read a synopsis in advance, to be able to place the settings and the secondary characters, or to follow their interweaving of action, recollection and imagination. There's a varied and talented creative team. Holly Waddington and Eleanor Bull's costumes flip from 60s Americana to abstract-expressionist leotards as the dance ensemble transform between portraying specific characters and generic human beings, gathered into choruses of yearning, desire or defiance. Chiara Stephenson has created a superb set, able to indicate kitchen, bathroom, bar or classroom, and semi-concealing Jasmin Kent Rodgman's instrumental ensemble, who set the mood-music between Grant's songs. Does it gel, though? Intermittently. Rodgman and Grant's music often feel at odds with each other, and the choreography, though finely danced, seems more to pursue Isherwood's text than to find its own rhythms. The end, which I won't give away, does veer from the text but opts for comfort and closure where Isherwood had left us before a more open, unflinching vision, not of grief but of mortality. At Aviva Studios, Manchester, until 6 July; Linbury theatre, London, 8-20 September
