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Conceived and
Directed by
Robert Wilson
Based on the
story by
Gustave Flaubert
Music and book
by
Bernice Johnson
Reagon
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Sadler's
Wells
11
– 15 September 2003
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The
ingredients for this confection look
very good on paper. A great story, the
idea of telling it in a mixture of media
rather like a seventeenth century masque,
but with song substituting for speech
(not serving as its medium, as in opera),
and with episodes of puppetry, dance
and mime thrown in: how imaginative.
And for part of the time it almost works.
But when the best bit of a performance
is the songs, which in this case are
very listenable negro spirituals (or
clever imitations of them perhaps?),
and the rest does not quite match up
- except the lighting: which beautifully
reflects the colour of the costumes
- then the best one can offer is a question
mark.
If there
was one striking thing about this performance,
it is that it reminded the audience
that live theatre is probably our most
ancient art, which is why something
deep and atavistic thrills when the
curtain goes up. But the expectation
thus roused - of something full and
satisfying about to happen - is disappointed
here. The show starts painfully slowly;
the heart sinks as the tedious first
minutes get slower and heavier; and
there is little really to enjoy until
the first song breaks out. When it does,
one sees how natural dance is to the
human body in all its sizes, shapes
and ages - dance of the kind our grandparents
might do at a wedding, note: not Dance
dance - but this was an accident of
the show, not an essential, and there
was little else that compared.
At the
end Robert Wilson appeared on stage
to accept applause along with the cast,
and when the music started up again
he danced, demonstrating what was apparent
in the movement of the drama itself:
that he lacks a sense of rhythm.
AC Grayling |
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