Today's word is... balletomane.
All I have to say is: OMFGDavidHallberg.
Actually, I have a lot more to say than that. I'm pretty sure you're all sick of hearing about my trips to the ballet -- or at least sick of hearing me wax lyrical over certain dancers -- or possibly it's only my co-workers who feel this way -- but you definitely will be after reading this -- so it's all behind a cut today.
So B. and I went to last Saturday's matinee; she preferred the weekend to a Wednesday, and after seeing a photograph of Death's heavy makeup and stiff gait in "The Green Table," I *thought* it would be better to see DH in the more classical and supposedly virtuosic "Kaleidoscope" while someone else took the unrecognizable role of Death. But as luck (or lack thereof) would have it, once again the decision backfired: DH's supporting role had only one or two impressive moves and mostly functioned as an accessory to his female partner, while Ethan Stiefel as the main male character got all the elegant screen time. Ethan was lovely. B. thought he was the one I liked and fondly compared him to Baryshnikov. (That's "Barry-shiny-cow" for you, catilinarian. :) )
The second piece, "Gong," was a modern work with dancers doing funky moves in solid-color unitards by Isaac Mizrahi. It was, as predicted, bizarre. The good parts featured dancers parodying classical moves, sometimes in silence and slow motion, and one scene featured low front lighting so the three dancers' shadows were blown up against a screen at the back. The bad parts were ... well, if you've ever seen Danny Kaye's spoof, "Choreography," from "White Christmas," you know the pain.
Then came "The Green Table." Powerful and political and sad and beautiful and scary and sexy as hell. The score consists of two pianos alternating between jaunty, soft and dramatic depending on the scene, which reminded me of a silent film score and which I've seen described as being reminiscent of a war/newsreel accompaniment. The ballet is divided into eight scenes, or rather six bookended by two masked parties negotiating across a (surprise!) green table: soldiers leaving for and fighting a battle, a profiteer pickpocketing the victims and pimping their survivors, a group of widows or refugees fleeing the war, a partisan executed by a firing squad, a girl passed around in a brothel, and finally the medieval dance macabre with everyone strung in a line behind Death bearing a standard-flag. Death plucks one person or more from each scene, each time in a different manner. My favorite was the girl in the brothel. It will be yours too, I think, when I explain it in just a minute.
Isaac Stappas was a mediocre lead, but I suspected that was a result of the part itself -- Death is supposed to move in huge inelegant strides, lifting stiff arms as if he's holding a scythe, pounding stiff legs against the stage to beat out relentless time. Stappas looked stocky, too, but again I thought it was a trick of makeup and costume -- black lines on limbs to simulate bones and joints, heavy black plumed helmet, strappy leather top like a ribcage and wide shin-high boots. But still, even after his disappointing performance in "Kaleidoscope," I wondered if David Hallberg would somehow manage to do it better.
And so I ended up going back on Wednesday, again, alone and $60 poorer and feeling ridiculous. And God am I glad I did. If I'd had the benefit of seeing DH in "The Green Table" the first time, I'm certain it would have absolutely blown me away.
First, though, I sat through "Les Sylphides" again -- still boring, but less so with a clear view of the stage, and almost fun when I tried to insert a plot and pretended that one of the women was Mary Shelley and the man in the poet's shirt and tights was Percy Shelley (it worked with all the other women he danced with, see, because of his whole "free love" philosophy). Well, Percy Shelley with no pants. So like watching "Gothic." With no blood. Blood would have improved things.
Second on the bill was "Apollo," which all the ads tell you is "one of the greatest male roles ever created." In the part of the maturing god, Ethan Stiefel (still lovely) moved from tottering newborn to overexuberant adolescent to collected almost-adult ascending Olympus and only faltered when he lifted his dance partners, as he is willowy and small. His dances with the three Muses -- yes, sometimes all at once, the philanderer -- had some brilliant moments. Is there such a term as pas de quatre?
And we arrive at the point.
"The Green Table" with David Totally Redeemed Hallberg. He was a taller, livelier, angrier, haughtier, sexier, completely convincing Death with a much richer characterization. Nearly everything he did outshone Stappas: When DH stretched, he stretched higher; when he stooped, he stooped lower; when he rocked the old woman, he rocked more gently, tenderly; when he danced with the young girl, he was alternately rougher, yanking her -- there's no other word -- against him and waltzing her around the stage, and more fluid as he lowered her to the ground; the way he towered, menacing, arrogant, over the slimy Profiteer -- watched impassive as the Partisan died, reaching for him -- drew the Standard Bearer inexorably to him -- brought life and energy to Death's repetitive, jerky dance instead of going through the motions -- I wish I had the words. He was there, in every moment.
Now here is my favorite scene, and I've waited to describe it in the hope that some of the power of DH's performance, rather than Stappas', will translate. Scene opens on a girl in a plain pale dress, hair down, shoeless, the orphaned daughter of the woman rocked to "sleep" in Death's arms a few scenes previously, standing terrified surrounded by swaying ratty couples. Soldier 1 swoops in, waltzes her around crazily, swoops out. Pimp pushes her to Soldier 2, who lifts her bodily, swings, plunks her down, swoops out. Soldier 3 heaves her over his shoulder, repeat. In each dance she stands stiffly, hands palm-out at her chest, afraid or unwilling to touch the men. She's now lying exhausted on the floor. Enter Soldier 4. Lifts her up slowly, lets her gain some distance. Approaches. She retreats. He pulls back. Tries again. She retreats. He pulls back. He tries a third time; she lets him. They waltz together. Then they separate to opposite corners of the stage (the other characters are gone), and when he starts to return to her his steps are those associated with Death in the ballet, and sure enough there's Death suddenly behind him, mimicking. He's come for the soldier, you think. But when the soldier gets to the girl, he keeps going, and Death stops. Pulls her to him. Waltzes her, in absolute control. Drains the life away, and when she's too weak to stand, he bends her over his arm, kneels, lays her on the floor, leans in until he's practically kissing her, trails his lips down her neck, her chest, to her stomach. The light has dimmed by this point to a sickly green-blue, a single spotlight. And Death raises his head, staring ghostly-white at the audience. Fade.
Everyone else seemed to feel the effects of his presence too. You could hear the audience let out a collective shaky breath after he slowly lifted his head. I think at the end he came very close to a standing ovation. He brought me nearly to tears several times, and I'm not a crier.
Wrapping up, I promise. I just want to share this excerpt from an article at ballet.co.uk, because it's coherent and objective support from someone credible:
"ABT's Death is David Hallberg, in what might well be the role of his career. Already tall, when wearing Hein Heckroth's vaguely Roman helmet with its black plume, Hallberg appears gargantuan and terrifying... It's an amazing transformation for Hallberg, from beautiful and golden to dark and menacing. [...] Hallberg uses his beautiful line (yes, you do find yourself admiring this Death's skeletal legs) and lyrical qualities to show subtle gradations in his character, as when he almost-gently carries off a dying old woman, or, most chillingly, in the brothel scene. [...] Hallberg plays this moment of lyricism from the hard-edged death beautifully, and hauntingly, leaving us to ponder the ambiguity of this kiss. Was Death paying a lover's farewell to the girl, or, bent over her like a wolf over a carcass, was he feeding on her soul? Either way, it's [...] a triumph of interpretation for Hallberg."
I'm not sure whether it's a compliment or an epitaph to declare something "the role of his career" when the guy's only 21. I do hope he becomes hugely famous some day, but I have to admit I also like the situation right now; it's like being in on a marvelous secret.
And moving on.
synn's back from YaoiCon and I'm off to Philly with my mother and sister for a day to visit a great-aunt I haven't seen in probably 10 years. She's been terrific to my mother since she (my mother) was a kid, is now old and wealthy and ill, and is apparently preparing to fill our car with boxes upon boxes of stuff -- china, pottery, painted eggs, who knows -- to keep it away from her son-in-law, who she's convinced is going to take everything when she and her husband die. Should be a fun time.
Fortunately I have Jonathan Lethem for company, in the form of Motherless Brooklyn, which features a detective-hero with Tourette's. Makes for interesting reading when he keeps randomly yipping or shouting stuff like "EatmeBailey!" (or, my favorite so far, "Eatme-stringjoke!"). It's not funny, really, and Lethem isn't intending it to be. The way Lionel describes living with the syndrome reminds me of having a chest cold where you feel the urge to cough, try to suppress it, succeed briefly, then descend into desperation as the urge builds, losing concentration on what's going on, perhaps seeking escape in shifting your position or breathing differently, until the inevitable cough explodes; the urge recedes, but you know it'll be back; and the cycle continues. It's like that for Lionel in the book except instead of a cough it's verbal or physical tics, which get worse under stress. My manager's son has Tourette's and she's mentioned how when he comes home from college he lets loose all the tics that've been building up until he relaxes after about a day.
Aside from the condition itself, or rather because of it, Lionel makes for a beautiful read on account of the language games he's forced to play. Every time he hears a new word or strange phrase he tumbles it over in his head and comes right back with a handful of variations, one-two-three, in wacky combinations and always rhythmic. In the tradition of reading any good writer's work, my thoughts are starting to rock to his cadence.
Off to Philly.