American Ballet Theatre
Metropolitan Opera House
Lincoln Center
New York, New York
June 18, 19 evening, and 20, 2024
Onegin
June 28, 29 matinee and evening
Woolf Works (New York premiere)
Jerry Hochman
American Ballet Theatre returned to the Metropolitan Opera House for its annual Spring/Summer season on June 18, bringing with it John Cranko’s superb Onegin, as well as another “elephant-in-the-room” confounding situation that no one involved seems to be willing to discuss. Beyond recognizing the fact that the opening night lead cast was suddenly changed at essentially the last minute, I’ll save further discussion of that elephant until the end of the Onegin part of this review so as not to diminish the positive qualities of the ballet, and the three performances of it, that I saw last week.
Onegin was followed by a week of performances of Wayne McGregor’s Woolf Works. I saw three performances of that piece as well.
The differences between Onegin and Woolf Works are legion: they don’t really belong in the same review, but circumstances (mine) dictate that. Both are evening-length dances, but that’s about all they have in common. While Onegin and Woolf Works both tell a story, in Woolf Works the “story” is author Virginia Woolf herself. Where Onegin is straightforward, Woolf Works is complex. Where Onegin is 19th Century, Woolf Works is 21st Century. And where Onegin’s only “gimmick” is a mirror that isn’t one, Woolf Works is larded with overwhelming excess and superfluous spectacle. In the end, however, and with several glaring exceptions applicable to Woolf Works, both are successful and highly entertaining dances.
Part 1: The Passion of John Cranko’s Onegin
I’m hardly the first person to describe Onegin in its current form (it premiered with the Stuttgart in 1965, but was revised significantly in advance of its 1967 Stuttgart performances) as a masterpiece. The choreographic palette that Cranko uses is limited, but in this case that’s a plus. It’s tight, and concurrently intimate and panoramic; it extracts and exploits every ounce of irony in the Pushkin “novel in verse” that is its source; and it’s almost too real. The ballet (including its agglomeration of Tchaikovsky music stitched together so seamlessly by Kurt-Heinz Stolze that it sounds and feels like a unified whole) builds inexorably, one emotional and choreographic crescendo after another, to the wrenching conclusion that drains every ounce of emotional energy from Tatiana, one of its lead characters, as well as from the audience. Every dance (including folk-inspired ensemble dances that are far more interesting than the usual filler) and every pas de deux, is done the way it’s done for a reason; each as perfectly sculpted as the next – the Act III, Scene 2 pas de deux is particularly extraordinary, and extraordinarily moving. And it culminates in one of those endings – like Romeo and Juliet – that even though you know it’s coming, is an emotional cataclysm impossible to prepare for: an extended wail of anguish and pain.
It’s been awhile since ABT presented Onegin (2017 appears to have been its most recent run), and the company has performed it only sporadically in between its company premiere in 2001 and 2017. Consequently, a brief review of the story is appropriate.
Chloe Misseldine, Jarod Curley, and American Ballet Theatre
in John Cranko’s “Onegin”
Photo by Kyle Froman
In essence, the story is soap-opera dramatic irony. Olga, an effervescent extrovert, and her bookish, somewhat introverted sister Tatiana, are visited at their family’s country estate by Olga’s fiancé, Lensky, who brings his city friend Onegin, who is wound tighter than a drum, to chill in the country. Tatiana is introduced to the brooding, distant, but charming Onegin, and is smitten almost immediately. After dreaming of a relationship with him (and imagining the two of them dancing a passionate pas de deux), Tatiana writes a letter to Onegin professing her love for him.
In Act II, Onegin breaks Tatiana’s heart. During festivities to celebrate Tatiana’s birthday, he regards her contemptuously as if she were a naïve child unworthy of his interest, rips apart her letter, cruelly hands her its shreds, and demands that she leave him alone. Onegin then decides to flirt with Olga for reasons not completely clear – he’s either villainous, inconsiderate, clueless, or perhaps seeking a way out of his boredom. Olga, who seems to relish having fun and is flattered by Onegin’s attention, enjoys a meaningless roll on the dance floor with the urbane visitor. But Lensky is outraged by his friend’s perfidy and his fiancé’s dance-floor infidelity, and challenges Onegin to a duel. Onegin accepts, and to the consternation of the two sisters, the duel takes place, and Lensky is killed.
Act III is set years later, after Tatiana has married a wealthy older man, Prince Gremin, a truly gentle man who treats her well but has the personality of a block of wood. Onegin attends a ball at Gremin’s palace, and recognizes Tatiana, who had morphed into a beautiful, elegant, and sophisticated woman. He realizes that he made an enormous mistake, asks Tatiana to see him, and writes her a love letter. When the two meet in Tatiana’s boudoir in the palace, he begs her to accept his love, but it’s too late. Although her feelings for him are rekindled, the tormented Tatiana rips apart the letter, hands it to him in shreds, and demands that he leave her alone. But in the process Tatiana’s heart is broken again: she’s still in love with him.
How is that possible, one might wonder, since Tatiana obviously found comfort and a kind of adoration from Prince Gremin – especially in light of the immediately preceding sequence in which she begs Gremin to remain with her to counter the anticipated appearance of Onegin, and also in light of the original version of the ballet, where Tatiana, at the end of the dance, says goodnight to her children – children she had with Gremin. It’s the passion. There may be love for Gremin that’s more than passive, but it’s the comforting, chicken soup kind of love; there’s no passion. The love she feels for Onegin isn’t at all comforting, but it’s passionate in a continuing and all-consuming way.
Jake Roxander in John Cranko’s “Onegin”
Photo by Rosalie O’Connor
I’ve been privileged to have seen many outstanding Onegin performances, including by Marcia Haydee in one of the Stuttgart Ballet’s visits to New York in the 1970s (although in my mind’s eye I can’t see her partner – my memory tells me it was Richard Cragun, but although I have clear memories of him with Haydee in The Taming of the Shrew, I don’t in Onegin). Be that as it may, I also have seen Natalia Makarova’s Tatiana, Diana Vishneva’s (with Marcelo Gomes), and Alessandra Ferri’s (with Roberto Bolle), among a slew of others. I’ve previously written that Giselle is my favorite ballet; Onegin (like Manon and Romeo and Juliet) isn’t far behind.
Perhaps for that reason, I’ve never seen a bad performance of it. Each of the characters is finely drawn, but permits a variety of specific details depending on the personal qualities of the dancers. So it was with the performances I attended last week.
Chloe Misseldine is this year’s ballet “it” girl. She seems to be everywhere at once. In addition to her ABT appearances, I understand that she’s appeared in various programs world-wide, which will only increase as she gains familiarity with essential ballerina roles – like Tatiana in Onegin. Her Tatiana on the 20th was quite extraordinary. I thought that Misseldine was too young for the role, but she proved me wrong. Indeed, while I’ve usually seen Titania performed by ballerinas with greater experience, having less experience worked too, particularly in the Act 1, Scene 2 pas de deux – her “dream” scene, in which youthful innocence not only makes sense; it’s essential.
Of at least equal significance is her already gasp-inducing ability to take charge of a moment and make it memorable, whether it’s technique or the body that she’s been blessed with that she uses so well. But ultimately it’s those legs. She’s relatively tall, thin as a rail, and with legs that seem to span her body from foot to neck. More importantly, she knows what to do with them – she stretches her développés and arabesques all the way to forever. [In that regard her performance brought to mind Sylvie Guillem when, as a relative unknown, she appeared here with the Paris Opera Ballet in Swan Lake, and had the audience, and me, gasping in disbelief.] And she’s already learning to stretch time as well. It will be great fun to watch her grow artistically.
Chloe Misseldine and Thomas Forster
in John Cranko’s “Onegin”
Photo by Rosalie O’Connor
Here, Misseldine also had the benefit of Thomas Forster’s superb performance as Onegin. Forster doesn’t overdo anything – even being a cultured lout. A year ago I described Forster’s Siegfried as being a “mensch.” That sense permeates his portrayal here as well. Onegin’s offensive qualities are there, but they’re tempered. And when he changes his opinion of Tatiana in Act III, the conversion is excruciatingly believable, and consequently the pas de deux in Scene 2 was particularly memorable. More importantly, however, he partnered Misseldine flawlessly. I thought he might have difficulty because she’s so tall (relatively), but that didn’t seem to be a concern.
I’ll reserve discussion of the supporting roles to later in this review – with one exception. At this performance Prince Gremin was played by Jarod Curley. Normally Gremin is that block of wood I described above, but Curley’s portrayal gave him some depth – particularly in Act III Scene 2, when Tatiana tries to convince him to stay with her. The result is the same, of course – he has things to do – but Curley smiled sincerely at Tatiana’s efforts, and melted…just a little, but it gave a brief peak into his heart. It obviously meant something to him, especially compared to the same scene done by others, who simply receive Tatiana’s desperate pleas and leave, outwardly at least unmoved. [The other two Gremins, Roman Zhurbin on Tuesday and Andrii Ishchuk, delivered more standard, “block of wood” performances.]
This performance was supposed to have been Misseldine’s debut (as well as the role debuts of the other major members of the cast). It wasn’t. Because of those casting changes mentioned at the outset, Misseldine et. al. debuted the previous night, subbing for Christine Shevchenko, whose own role debut was moved up to the opening night performance.
Christine Shevchenko and Cory Stearns
in John Cranko’s “Onegin”
Photo by Rosalie O’Connor
Shevchenko is brilliant in any role she assays, and her Tatiana is no different. Particularly since her performance dates were changed at close to the last minute, her Tatiana was memorable. I found her final scene to have been a bit different (e.g., I thought I saw two consecutive “screams”), but it worked.
Her performance also was aided by her Onegin, Cory Stearns. To my eye his portrayal was pitch perfect, as was his partnering (although he occasionally struggled a bit on the lifts). Hee Seo might have been a better fit.
As for Seo’s Tatiana on Wednesday evening, it was the finest performance of all three. Seo has gotten older since the last time I saw her dance Tatiana – and that’s not a negative observation or criticism – and looking more mature has enhanced her already titanic portrayal without diminishing any part of it.
I reviewed Seo’s Tatiana in 2012, and raved about it. Aside from nailing everything in her character’s character, and the choreography, in the final scene, I thought I saw real tears streaming down her face. The second time I saw her Tatiana a few years later, I saw the same thing (I don’t recall whether I reviewed that performance). I didn’t notice “tears” at this performance, possibly because of my different position in the house. But their absence made no difference in her portrayal. Seo inhabits her character (or, more accurately, her character inhabits her) as fully as any Tatiana I’ve previously seen (including Vishneva, Ferri, and Haydee).
The problem I had with the performance wasn’t her; it was her Onegin, James Whiteside. Unlike the other Onegins during this run, and most of the others I’ve seen, Whiteside was not sophisticated, or even pseudo-sophisticated. From the outset, his characterization was nasty, arrogant, conceited, and superior – although he dressed well. That demeanor softened by the final act, as it had to, but the overall impression was far too negative. But I have to temper my opinion. I checked the description of Eugene Onegin given to Pushkin’s original version of the character, and it matches what Whiteside portrayed: an arrogant, selfish, and world-weary cynic (per its description in Wikipedia). Whiteside’s Onegin was all that. So I won’t insist that he was miscast here, but it certainly appeared that way as I watched his portrayal.
As for the other significant cast-members, most were cut from the same cloth, and delivered excellent performances.
The casting in Onegin appears to have been done in blocks – there were three different casts, with no overlap in featured roles. But, with the casting changes, the supporting cast for the opening night performance would not have had an opportunity to be seen at all. So. for that performance only, management allowed the original supporting cast to remain so they at least could perform their roles once.
Zimmi Coker, Jake Roxander, and American Ballet Theatre
in John Cranko’s “Onegin
Photo by Rosalie O’Connor
And that turned out to be a superb supporting cast: Zimmi Coker as Olga, Jake Roxander as Lensky (both in role debuts), and Zhurbin as Prince Gremin. For Coker, who I (and most everyone else) has highlighted before, this was one of her few featured roles to date, and to my eye she nailed it. Her Olga was born to be a redhead. And Roxander, whose performance last year in the Giselle peasant pas de deux moved me to discuss his performance first (even before the ballerinas who played Giselle) in my subsequent review, did the same with his Lensky. And his solo at the beginning of Act II, Scene 1 was particularly memorable.
But the other accompanying casts in most respects delivered fine role interpretations as well. On Thursday, Catherine Hurlin was an equally spirited Olga, but one with a sophisticated edge. Wednesday’s Olga, Cassandra Trenary, demonstrated that a spirited and sophisticated Olga need not have red, or reddish blonde, hair. Both performances were delicious to watch. Wednesday’s Lensky, Calvin Royal III, was particularly impressive in his characterization, as was Thursday’s portrayal by Aran Bell.
Indeed, except with respect to Whiteside’s Onegin (and even there I talked myself out of my initial strong negative reaction), I can’t say any one of them was superior to the other. They were different from each other, but that’s one reason why attending multiple performances of different ballets, with different casts, is so rewarding.
Catherine Hurlin, Aran Bell, and American Ballet Theatre
in John Cranko’s “Onegin”
Photo by Rosalie O’Connor
Onegin is such a compelling ballet that it’d be extremely unfortunate to have to wait many years before it returns to ABT’s repertoire.
The Elephant in the Theater
But there was one unfortunate development in the week of Onegin.
The opening night cast was supposed to have been led by Devon Teuscher as Tatiana and Daniel Camargo as Onegin. That didn’t happen. Nor did it happen for their second scheduled performance. This was an enormous development – in terms of ABT’s publicity if nothing else. Teuscher was the representative Tatiana in every press release I can recall, and her face (as Tatiana) appeared on posters and other publicity materials. To have been removed from her assigned Tatiana dates was an incomprehensible development. Even more incomprehensible was ABT’s response – which was a non-response. Nothing was said about it – as if it was a routine development not meriting any comment, when there should have been one.
To my knowledge, no reason has been given for Teuscher and Camargo’s replacement. [The Tatianas and the Onegins in this run were a package, and if one was unable to perform it, a completely different pair would replace them, so the source of whatever happened, if it was one of them, could have been either one.] I found out about it accidentally on the Friday before the performance week. I thought one or the other had been injured, but that doesn’t appear to have been the case.
So why were they removed? No one is saying. I’ve been made aware of a likely reason, but without it being official, I won’t speculate.
ABT’s not mentioning underlying reasons for changes in casting seems to be standard practice. Whether that’s right or wrong, in this particular case – removing their poster ballerina for Onegin at essentially the last minute – silence isn’t appropriate. I can only conclude that ABT doesn’t want the real reason known.
One way or the other, the development is unfair to ABT, to Teuscher and Camargo, and to those who expected to see their performances. Replacements happen, but not at the last minute without reason. If, and I emphasize if, the decision was not made by ABT or the dancers, there’s only one explanation that makes any sense – and, aside from the fact that it happened at all, it shouldn’t have been done at the last minute. Life is unfair, but if the decision to replace them was made, why did it take until the last minute to make that decision?
In any event, that’s water under the bridge now. But it’s not gone unnoticed.
Part II: Wayne’s World
After the outrage that was Wayne McGregor’s last piece performed by ABT, AFTERIGHT, I had not expected to review one of his dances again – AFTERIGHT was that reprehensible.
But life goes on, and when ABT announced it would be performing McGregor’s Woolf Works, which had premiered with the Royal Ballet in 2015, I knew I’d have to confront it. I’ll acknowledge that I have considerable discomfort doing so, but in the following discussion I’ve put that aside. Nevertheless, there’s a possible common denominator here between Woolf and AFTERIGHT, one that I choose not to elaborate on here. [If interested, see the extensive (and footnoted) Wikipedia entry about Virginia Woolf.]
What McGregor has done in Woolf Works, the process, is similar to what he had to have known he was doing with AFTERIGHT – taking a contemporary literary classic and seeing it in a different way. Here, instead of one classic it’s three of Woolf’s novels. The genius of Woolf Works – and I’ll concede that “genius” is what it is – is that McGregor essentially turns these stories inside out, focusing on the novels’ author rather than the book’s story, and fashioning a narrative out of it that tells a story of Woolf herself. How he’s decided to accomplish this, and whether he succeeded, is the issue. Essentially, it all works, but it would have worked better without one component of it, which in its present form is unnecessarily over-the-top, and profoundly annoying.
Alessandra Ferri and Herman Cornejo
in Wayne McGregor’s “Woolf Works”
Photo by Rosalie O’Conner
One doesn’t need to know much about Woolf and the three novels to comprehend what McGregor is doing, Nevertheless, a bit of background might be helpful to understand the world that McGregor created: what he included, and what he omitted.
Virginia Woolf (1882 – 1941) is considered by many to be one of the most important modernist (a self-conscious separation from traditional ways of writing in both poetry and prose fiction writing) authors. She pioneered the use of stream of consciousness as a narrative device. Of perhaps equal significance is the gender fluidity reflected in some of her work. As is widely known, she herself had a relationship with Vita Sackville-West while she was married to Leonard Woolf, a relationship that apparently didn’t bother him or their circle of artist friends known as the Bloomsbury Group (after the London neighborhood in which they lived), or, for that matter, the London society within which Woolf (nee Stephen) lived. Indeed, relationships, like gender preferences, seem particularly fluid among Woolf’s contemporaries.
The underlying seeds of Woolf’s literary and personal qualities have been the subject of many explorations. She had mental illness issues early on, and appears to have been remarkably self-aware of her psychological condition. The earliest of her most acute periods, apparently, was when her mother died when she was thirteen years old, but they continued at various intervals and various forms throughout her life, and it was another acute episode, and the awareness of it, that prompted her suicide (which she’d attempted previously, although those appear not to have been as determined).
Woolf was part of a blended family. Her mother had children from an earlier marriage, as did her adopted father. It appears to have been a highly-functioning dysfunctional family. She asserted long after the fact (she was a child when the incidents allegedly happened) that she had been abused by her two step-brothers, and some commentators contend that this may just have been the tip of the iceberg. Alternatively, as others assert, this may have been a nonexistent explanation she created to explain her mental illness. [The bulk of the commentary I’ve read supports the former.]
McGregor selects three of Woolf’s most popular books as the vehicles through which he tells her story: “Mrs. Dalloway,” “Orlando,” and “The Waves.” But he uses the books primarily as jumping off points. And the segments that relate to each of the books are not denominated as “Acts”; McGregor assigns independent titles to each of the Woolf Works segments: respectively (per the book order above) “I now, I then,” “Becomings,” and “Tuesday.”
Hee Seo in Wayne McGregor’s “Woolf Works”
Photo by Marty Sohl
The tenor of the piece as a whole, and of its first segment, is revealed before that segment even starts. A brief, spoken statement is piped through the theater’s sound system (the voice may be Woolf’s own) that addresses the significance of words. As it concludes, and as the ballet begins, words (presumably from Woolf’s books) are projected against the curtain, overwhelming the stage space. This panorama of words gradually dissolves into the story to be presented. Without qualification, this is brilliant theatricality; it’s a hook that gets the audience deeply involved even before the first segment of the ballet begins. [The film design (including, presumably, the projections) is by Ravi Deepres.]
In the first segment McGregor interweaves into the book’s character framework comparable events and issues and people in Woolf’s own life (which, I suppose, is doing what Woolf did in writing her novel, but in reverse), and alters the characters according to his needs. This is not something that a viewer must deduce; it’s part of the description of the segment that McGregor discloses in the program notes: ““I now; I then” is a journey into the writing of “Mrs. Dalloway,” interweaving narrative fragments from the novel with aspects of Woolf’s autobiography, including the experience of drawing on her own mental illness as subject matter.” The description is accurate.
The character Virginia Woolf/ Older Clarissa is the most important in the segment (and in the dance as a whole). Obviously, if it wasn’t already apparent by the program note, McGregor here makes crystal clear that he’s treating the Clarissa in “Mrs. Dallaway” as a stand-in for Woolf herself, which may be what Woolf intended, and the segment’s Young Clarissa (continuing memories of Clarissa’s younger self in the book) recreates memories in Virginia Woolf/ Older Clarissa’s life, including Clarissa’s first kiss with another girl, Sally, and her youthful impassioned relationship with Peter, who proposes to her but she chose the reliable Richard instead, who is now her hopelessly boring husband.
But although she has been given choreography of her own, some of it laden with emotion, the role of Virginia Woolf/ Older Clarissa is, at least equally, an acting one; most of the action is seen through the other characters (Virginia/ Older Clarissa’s memories). The most significant are Young Clarissa, Peter (whose negative qualities in the book are sanitized out of McGregor’s revision), Richard, Sally, and, separately, Septimus. [Septimus, a World War I veteran now suffering from PTSD, as well as his own painful memories and his sense of being ostracized, is not someone who Older Clarissa actually knew; his name comes up in discussion at Clarissa’s party. His own story, his own memories, and his apparent madness are treated separately (but somewhat parallel) in the book, and in the dance.] Septimus’s madness leads to his suicide (with a final image that foreshadows the image of Virginia at the end of the dance’s final segment).]
(l-r) Alessandra Ferri and Lea Fleytoux
in Wayne McGregor’s “Woolf Works”
Photo by Kyle Froman
I saw three sets of casts in this segment. As Virginia Woolf/ Older Clarisa, I saw Alessandra Ferri (who created the role for its London premiere in 2015), Hee Seo, and Gillian Murphy. Each portrayed her character(s) with understated but undeniable passion and a communicated sense of irretrievable but unforgettable loss. Each left a vivid impression. Ferri was the most emotionally involved, and she’s still able to execute the required choreography. And Seo’s portrayal was equally compelling. All that being said, it may be heresy, but my favorite of the three – perhaps because it was unexpected – was Murphy.
Young Clarissa is an important role, with most of the choreographic responsibility, and was danced by Lea Fleytoux, Fangqi Lee (who I don’t recall previously seeing), and Sierra Armstrong. [The casting appears to have been an effort to physically match, to the extent possible, Young Clarissa with Older Clarissa.] If I had to select one as the best of the three, it would be Fleytoux, whose performance left me breathless. But each delivered highly commendable, and highly revealing (in terms of their talent) performances. Each merits more, and more complex, role opportunities than they’ve been given to date. Peter was played by Herman Cornejo, Aran Bell, and Joo Won Ahn. To my eye Bell’s was most compelling. And of the superb Septimus portrayals I saw, Calvin Royal III, and Carlos Gonzalez, Royal’s was the most hyperactively crazed (appropriately), but both delivered compelling performances.
And I must also recognize the significance of an ingenious set – simple but enormous rectangles, standing (and rotating) on their shorter end, one next to the other. But they’re more than simple rectangles; they function as both gateways from the past to the present and back, and floating frames against which most of the action takes place. [For this segment, the set was designed by CIGUE.]
Despite, or maybe because of, its complexity and its impassioned characterization and choreography (albeit limited), “I now, I then” is the finest example of McGregor’s work that I’ve seen to date.
The second segment, “Becomings,” is more problematic.
The jumping off point for this segment is Woolf’s “Orlando,” a purported “biography” of a character named Orlando, who begins life as a male in Elizabethan England, becomes a woman at age 30, lives for some three centuries without aging (take that, Sleeping Beauty) and observes changes (including gender fluidity) from beginning to end. The book has been described as an extended love-letter to Sackville-West – and indeed she sought Sackville-West’s permission before publishing the book, since so much of what is contained in “Orlando” is so obviously based on incidents in Sackville-West’s life.
Little of this is evident in “Becomings.”
In the program note, “Orlando” is described as a reflection of changing times in England, including “the roles and rights of women, modes of representation in art and literature, and rapid advances in cosmology.” [Cosmology is defined as the science of the origin and development of the universe.] “Becomings,” the program note goes on to say, “presents Orlando’s dizzying wide-angle vision of a vast, ever-altering universe in which life is energy passing through a multiplicity of forms – a brief, gorgeous flaring of insect wings, gestating, emerging, extinguishing, and moving on.” Of no significance is the relationship that prompted and is the framework for the book, or any of the book’s specific characters (including Orlando) – although gender fluidity is evident in the dance.
Chloe Misseldine in Wayne McGregor’s “Woolf Works”
Photo by Rosalie O’Connor
McGregor is faithful to his description. “Becomings” has nothing to do with anything real, or for that matter, any of the details in the book (at least none I was able to decipher). Rather, it attempts to visualize the passage of energy through lives and through time. Had it been expressed that way, the segment might have worked. But as presented, it’s a high-class sound and light show.
“Becomings” contains more choreography than any other of the Woolf Works components, but that choreography is difficult to discern through the gimmickry that stretches from the segment’s beginning through to its end; the parade of costumes that seems to try as much as it can to conceal the wearer’s identify (costume design by Moritz Junge); and Richter’s pulsing, repetitious score for this segment, which at times brought to mind Philip Glass.
But I’ll concede that as a sound and light show it energizes the audience. It may not be the right kind of entertainment for this piece or for ballet, but it’s entertainment. And there’s a value in that.
The segment begins with an assortment of characters spread horizontally across the stage, in virtual darkness. A spotlight (emanating from the rafters) is then shined atop certain of them, in no apparent order, illuminating them and illuminating their distinctive time-based costuming. [The spotlight may have focused on individuals based on the order of their presentation in the segment, but I can’t be certain of that.] The scene suggests a cloaked alien spaceship focusing on humans it wants to understand or to mark for subsequent harvesting.
“Becomings” moves on to display dancing that’s almost impossible to describe. Certain members of the group pair off, dance, and then move on. The pairings are male/ female, or male/ male (I didn’t see any female/female, but that’s probably there too), and they pass through the time void quickly. Those few dancers I could identify through the dim lighting and outlandish time-based costumes included Jake Roxander (in what might have been a knight’s costume), Daniel Camargo and maybe Joseph Markey, in which might have been caveman attire) (I know; “caveman” preceded Elizabethan England by a few years, but that’s what the costumes looked like to me), and, passing through, Christine Shevchenko and Skylar Brandt. But if you want to know anything about what they were doing, I can’t tell you.
Catherine Hurlin in Wayne McGregor’s “Woolf Works”
Photo by Ravi Deepres
One solo (that I think begins as a duet), however, is quite physically complex. It’s the finest choreography in the segment, and perhaps in the complete ballet. Its dancer, female, twists herself into unreal, impossible positions like a pretzel (emblematic of prior McGregor dances I’ve seen), but here there’s more than that, and the pretzel choreography blends in.
On Friday and Saturday evening, this role was danced by Catherine Hurlin; on Saturday afternoon, by Chloe Misseldine. Misseldine’s execution was somewhat refined and deliberate. There’s nothing wrong with that and it’s a hallmark of Misseldine’s portrayals to date in other ballets. It came across, however, as lacking sufficient energy, which here is a major, and essential, component of the segment. Hurlin, on the other hand, was extraordinary in every facet of the choreography: her attack, her control, and her physical fluidity. As a friend observed afterward, she’s a force of nature (which accurately characterizes her performances in general). Even though it lasted only a fraction of time in the segment, Hurlin’s execution was a highlight not only of this segment, but of the ballet as a whole.
But not being able to see choreography that flashes before one’s eyes because it moves too quickly or is partially camouflaged, together with the overly repetitious score, are only part of the problem with “Becomings.” Far more discomforting is the light part of the sound and light show.
Lucy Carter, McGregor’s frequent collaborator, has here outdone herself. I have no doubt that what she accomplished is what McGregor wanted: from the already mentioned “spaceship” spots, to the dim lighting that adds a sense of mystery and other-worldliness to it all, to the strobe or laser lighting that pulses and (from my point of view) changes colors at their source, to the beams of light that not only cross the stage, but crisscross as they travel across the proscenium all the way across the orchestra to connect with a fixed location somewhere above the orchestra level. This is not just lighting; it’s standard superior stage lighting art, cubed. But does it add anything to the segment or the piece beyond, maybe impressing upon the viewer the universe-wide scope of the piece? I don’t think so. It’s over-the-top for the purpose of being over-the-top. The lighting, collectively, seemed to me to have been McGregor’s sole expressive point for this segment. I thought it was an opportunity missed.
Gillian Murphy in Wayne McGregor’s “Woolf Works”
Photo by Marty Sohl
BUT (there’s always a “but”), audience reaction to the sound and light show, at the three performances I attended (and to my knowledge at the others as well), was, to put it mildly, ecstatic. It was the sound and light equivalent of the kind of frenetic movement that seems to be what Gen Z or X or whatever seems to thrive on and demand. The faster the pace, the more they see the dancers in any given piece sweat, the more enthusiastically they respond. In that respect, “Becomings” is undeniably highly entertaining to contemporary audiences. And, consistent with the point I made last year in my review of Christopher Wheeldon’s Like Water for Chocolate, there’s a place for that in ballet – particularly if it gets audiences through the door. And maybe “entertainment” is the real reason, the value added, behind McGregor presenting the story in “Becomings” as he did. If the lighting helps sell tickets far more than it evidences dance theater art, does anyone other than highfalutin dance critics really care?
The third segment, based on Woolf’s book “The Waves” (1931), is titled “Tuesday.” Reportedly one of the most difficult of Woolf’s novels to follow, “The Waves” examines the lives of six friends as they grow from young children into themselves as adults, in the process examining individual consciousness and the ways in which multiple consciousnesses can weave together. Along the way, the six (who may all be one person) examine themes that include relationships, professional achievements, death and suicide, as well as the tension between one’s inner life and the outward experience of it.
But “Tuesday” isn’t concerned with details from the book. The segment’s raison d’etre is to distill and visualize Woolf’s state of mind at the time of her suicide, of course by drowning, presumably in “waves.”
I tried to find some significance to the segment’s title; I thought maybe it was the day of her suicide. But Woolf’s death was on March 21, 1941 – a Friday. If it was some reference to one other particular day in the book, McGregor is mum about it.
The program note states that “Tuesday” merges themes of “The Waves” with a portrayal of the writer’s suicide by drowning, As Woolf counts her steps toward the river Ouse and her final journey, so too the world of her novel moves towards abstraction and silence.” I saw nothing of that in “Tuesday.” Rather, the segment uses “waves” as background (a wide-angled very slow-moving video of waves crashing against land or rocks or both hangs on the stage’s back wall), and as stage background simulated by rows of dancers moving in a way (head and torso move down, then sloops forward a bit, then back up) that mimics the action of waves.
But that’s not to say “Tuesday” is not powerful; it is.
The scene begins with a reading of Woolf’s suicide letter to her husband (read by Gillian Anderson), within which, she writes: “….You have given me the greatest possible happiness. You have been in every way all that anyone could be. I don’t think two people could have been happier till this terrible disease came…..” but that she couldn’t endure another bout with her “illness” – essentially recognizing her recurring mental illness and being unable to overcome it. No “direct” cause is mentioned.
Aside from the dancers whose movement quality (to Richter’s score) are metaphoric “waves,” the only character to appear aside from Woolf (here without being tethered to “Clarissa”) is Peter (not a character in “The Waves”), who appears to be a figment of Woolf’s imagination (as, in a different way, he was in “I now, I then”). He comforts her, eases her way through the waves, and helps her prepare, emotionally, for what she’s determined to do, until, suddenly, Woolf fall to the floor, spreading herself the way Septimus had spread his body following his suicide in the ballet’s first segment.
Notwithstanding my matter-of-fact discussion above, “Tuesday,” ultimately, is very moving. Again, although my recollection is that much (but not all) of their performances here was more acting than dance based, Peter and Virginia (the characters – neither of whom are identified as “characters” in this segment) make it work; their acting carries the segment to its conclusion, carrying the audience with them.
For each performance, the dancers portraying Peter and Virginia are the same, as those for the “I now, I then” segment earlier in the dance. All delivered agonizing – and brilliant – portrayals.
In a prior review, I mentioned that the first commandment of theater (including ballet theater) is ‘thou shalt not be boring’. A corollary of not being boring is being entertaining to an audience. Of course, entertaining can mean different things, or multiple things. A dance that moves the heart or the mind (or, on rare occasions, both) is what I mean by being entertaining, but simply moving the audience in some way (e.g., the “wow” factor) works too, but on a different level. Ultimately, Woolf Works goes both ways.
So…what to make of all this. Despite the excesses of “Becomings” and the absence – except in rare instances – of quality choreography, overall Woolf Works is not to be missed when it likely returns if for no other reason than the remarkable conception of the piece as a whole, the performances by the lead dancers, and the overall “experience.” But if/ when I see it again, I’ll bring sunglasses, and maybe earplugs, to survive the second segment.
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