Conceived and
Directed by
Robert Wilson
Based on the
story by
Gustave Flaubert
Music and book by
Bernice Johnson Reagon
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The Temptation
of Saint Anthony
Sadler's Wells
11 - 15 September 2003
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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