Latest news with #narrativeballet
The Guardian
12 hours ago
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
Mary, Queen of Scots review – bold ballet brings the royal courts bang up to date
The second half of this show is much better than the first. It's often the way in (loosely) narrative ballet. There's all the scene-setting and character introductions before you can get to the guts of it – the relationships, the tension, the betrayal. Scottish Ballet's new Mary, Queen of Scots, created by choreographer Sophie Laplane and director James Bonas, stumbles in the setup. Sometimes it's just helpful to know where we are and who's who. How would we know this scene where the men have porky prosthetic bellies protruding from their jackets is the French court, for example? The central conceit is that this is Mary's story told through her cousin Elizabeth I's eyes and the creators have set themselves a challenge there: in literature, one person can easily tell another's story, but you can't dance someone else's dance. Older Elizabeth (Charlotta Öfverholm), however, is the most distinctive presence on stage, frail and losing her dignity, with a sense of confusion around her. The other knotty problem is to tell the relationship of two women who never actually met in real life. This sense of distance permeates the first half of the ballet: there's a coldness. It's in Mikael Karlsson and Michael P Atkinson's ominous music, mixing Scottish folk and minor-key electronics. It's in aloof young Elizabeth I (Harvey Littlefield) who arrives on stilts, looming above her court – but even without props, the character's movement remains stilted. It's in the courting of Mary (Roseanna Leney) and Lord Darnley (Evan Loudon), dancing like two sexy, powerful people who know they're being admired, and in the presence of Walsingham's spies, wearing bug-like masks, making life lonely and unsafe for a young queen. Choreographically, Laplane avoids some of contemporary ballet's typical display of the female body, legs up by the ears and show-off lines. She doesn't do pretty for pretty's sake, and weaves quirky and vernacular movement into her language. The ballet is full of surreal touches. In the second act, Mary gives birth to a balloon. The jester picks up a black pen and writes 'James' on it. (Where was this clear messaging in the first act when we needed it?) While Mary dances with her baby/balloon, the old Elizabeth picks up her own balloon, but it has no name (for she had no child) and pathos pierces the scene. We're finally getting to the nub of things. The ballet lifts off the stage when Laplane and Bonas manufacture a meeting of the two queens, Mary and Elizabeth standing in two side-by-side wardrobes (part of Soutra Gilmour's minimal, multifunction set) that look like confessional booths, while their proxies dance together. In one scene we see their bond, but also the faltering of their loyalty, and the dramatic denouement begins. This is a bold production, full of imagination and rightly determined not to be just another period drama but something genuinely contemporary. There is a lot of richness here, but it takes a long time to invest in, and a little more clarity could make all the difference. At Festival theatre, Edinburgh, until 17 August, then touring All our Edinburgh festival reviews
The Guardian
19 hours ago
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
Mary, Queen of Scots review – bold ballet brings the royal courts bang up to date
The second half of this show is much better than the first. It's often the way in (loosely) narrative ballet. There's all the scene-setting and character introductions before you can get to the guts of it – the relationships, the tension, the betrayal. Scottish Ballet's new Mary, Queen of Scots, created by choreographer Sophie Laplane and director James Bonas, stumbles in the setup. Sometimes it's just helpful to know where we are and who's who. How would we know this scene where the men have porky prosthetic bellies protruding from their jackets is the French court, for example? The central conceit is that this is Mary's story told through her cousin Elizabeth I's eyes and the creators have set themselves a challenge there: in literature, one person can easily tell another's story, but you can't dance someone else's dance. Older Elizabeth (Charlotta Öfverholm), however, is the most distinctive presence on stage, frail and losing her dignity, with a sense of confusion around her. The other knotty problem is to tell the relationship of two women who never actually met in real life. This sense of distance permeates the first half of the ballet: there's a coldness. It's in Mikael Karlsson and Michael P Atkinson's ominous music, mixing Scottish folk and minor-key electronics. It's in aloof young Elizabeth I (Harvey Littlefield) who arrives on stilts, looming above her court – but even without props, the character's movement remains stilted. It's in the courting of Mary (Roseanna Leney) and Lord Darnley (Evan Loudon), dancing like two sexy, powerful people who know they're being admired, and in the presence of Walsingham's spies, wearing bug-like masks, making life lonely and unsafe for a young queen. Choreographically, Laplane avoids some of contemporary ballet's typical display of the female body, legs up by the ears and show-off lines. She doesn't do pretty for pretty's sake, and weaves quirky and vernacular movement into her language. The ballet is full of surreal touches. In the second act, Mary gives birth to a balloon. The jester picks up a black pen and writes 'James' on it. (Where was this clear messaging in the first act when we needed it?) While Mary dances with her baby/balloon, the old Elizabeth picks up her own balloon, but it has no name (for she had no child) and pathos pierces the scene. We're finally getting to the nub of things. The ballet lifts off the stage when Laplane and Bonas manufacture a meeting of the two queens, Mary and Elizabeth standing in two side-by-side wardrobes (part of Soutra Gilmour's minimal, multifunction set) that look like confessional booths, while their proxies dance together. In one scene we see their bond, but also the faltering of their loyalty, and the dramatic denouement begins. This is a bold production, full of imagination and rightly determined not to be just another period drama but something genuinely contemporary. There is a lot of richness here, but it takes a long time to invest in, and a little more clarity could make all the difference. At Festival theatre, Edinburgh, until 17 August, then touring All our Edinburgh festival reviews
