At the Ballet
So. gabbygrl and I went to see "Dracula: The Ballet" tonight. We also agreed (fine, I agreed for us, and she was a good sport) to write a review for the school paper. Unfortunately school papers have silly things like word limits, that live journal lacks. So the complete version is this:
Expect the Unexpected
Dracula at the Ballet
We did not really know what to expect from “Dracula: The Ballet”, we knew, of course, that it would be hilarious - but not whether it would be hilarious in a good way or a really, really bad way. Luckily we were fine with either of these options. However, even going in with no expectations it was… not what we expected.
We certainly did not expect a voiceover in a ballet; we certainly did not expect the voiceover to lie to us. The voiceover starts by reading straight from the program, and then by telling us that what we will then be seeing is 400 years after Dracula’s… ascension? Luckily, we were not disappointed for long, because, in fact, the ballet does not open 400 years from his vampirization. We also did not expect that the subsequent murder scene would be one of our favorites in the ballet… or that we would get to see it twice due to some technical mishaps. As the case was though, we definitely preferred the first, technically flawed, take… if monks are being murdered; we want to be able to see it.
We also did not expect Dracula himself… you know how, when an actress gets old, she also gets sort of disagreeable about the fact that she cannot get leading roles? Apparently, though, all she needs to do to circumvent this is become the ‘Artistic Director’. Luckily, most actresses have not gone this path, and have instead followed the tried and true route of plastic surgery before slow fade into obscurity. We are just saying that the lead of a ballet should not be a portly middle-aged gentleman unless devoid of other options - which they were not.
It, in fact, made us a little bit angry. It is not that we are not sure he was not a fantastic dancer in his prime. It is, rather, that he is not a good dancer now. We should not be able to hear it when a ballet dancer lands, and we should not be able to see how hard they are working. We are supposed to think that ballet dancers are flying, that instead of being made of mass like you and I, they are made of happiness and talent. He failed to bring us the magic of the ballet, and if he were a woman, this would never have been allowed. We know this, for a fact, because his wife, who has been dancing a year less than he, was relegated to the roles of 'victim' and 'Dracula's Servant' (who did not even wear ballet shoes!).
By contrast, the dancer portraying Renfield was a true pleasure to watch. He captured the air of sycophantic servility that we find ourselves so fond of, and his violent, untimely end at the hands of ‘Dracula’s Brides’ was another one of our favorite scenes (don’t judge us).
Speaking of pleasures to behold, Mina was spectacular - her dancing alone elevated the ballet from mediocre to enjoyable.
Back on the topic of the plot, if you know the story of Dracula at all, you recognize how very… cracked this interpretation is. It seems as though, instead of reading the book, the choreographers watched Coppola’s 1992 “Dracula” and reinterpreted further. We were not expecting Elizabeta. We were not expecting for Renfield to die in the first act (perhaps this was necessary, because the dancer then played Dr. Van Helsing?). We were not expecting Poor Jonathan to spend the whole ballet trapped in a coffin.
On the topic of Poor Jonathan, a brief summary of his activity tells you all you need to know - that he never had it so good as when he was trapped in that damn coffin. To begin the ballet, Jonathan is forced to tell his fiancée that he is leaving to go to Dracula's castle. They do not even get music in a major key for their sweet parting, it was ominous and painful (there is a limit to how shrill we want our piccolo music to be, that is not shrill at all, this piccolo was not even close to that goal). In addition to the lack of appropriate music, this is the scene that set the standard for all other scenes in which characters were talking to each other. The standard was not set particularly high; rather, it was like watching a game of charades where the players did not quite know the rules. We often expected the dancers to hold up their fingers in the universal charades symbol for 'three words' (first word... sounds like...).
But we digress, once Poor Jonathan has left his very pissed off fiancée, he goes to Dracula's castle, which is never a good life decision. He is promptly attacked by Dracula, molested by Dracula's Brides, and shoved in a coffin so Dracula can steal his fiancée. Who then... never mind, we will tell you that bit later.
What we were really not expecting, was for the program to spoil the surprise ending. We cannot say how incredibly awesome we would find the fact that Mina remained under Dracula’s thrall* at the end of the ballet, if we had not known beforehand that it would happen. Except we are sure we would have loved it. Enough to make us love the rest more.
* This means, for those of you not in the know, that Mina remained a vampire. Dracula might not be dead. Further, for the rest of the story we promised you about Poor Jonathan it is this:
After being released from the coffin, he was handed a sword and forced to fight Dracula (sparks literally flew!). This is, of course, a fight he can never win, because Dracula can never die. Luckily for Poor Jonathan, he is then rescued by Dr. Van Helsing, who manages to kill Dracula, so that Poor Jonathan can be reunited with his precious Mina. They share a very moving dance and then go off into the woods, where she then kills him, and runs back into Dracula's abandoned coffin to the sound of Dracula's slightly maniacal laughter.
Poor Jonathan is not even given the honor of being killed on stage.
Poor Jonathan.
Expect the Unexpected
Dracula at the Ballet
We did not really know what to expect from “Dracula: The Ballet”, we knew, of course, that it would be hilarious - but not whether it would be hilarious in a good way or a really, really bad way. Luckily we were fine with either of these options. However, even going in with no expectations it was… not what we expected.
We certainly did not expect a voiceover in a ballet; we certainly did not expect the voiceover to lie to us. The voiceover starts by reading straight from the program, and then by telling us that what we will then be seeing is 400 years after Dracula’s… ascension? Luckily, we were not disappointed for long, because, in fact, the ballet does not open 400 years from his vampirization. We also did not expect that the subsequent murder scene would be one of our favorites in the ballet… or that we would get to see it twice due to some technical mishaps. As the case was though, we definitely preferred the first, technically flawed, take… if monks are being murdered; we want to be able to see it.
We also did not expect Dracula himself… you know how, when an actress gets old, she also gets sort of disagreeable about the fact that she cannot get leading roles? Apparently, though, all she needs to do to circumvent this is become the ‘Artistic Director’. Luckily, most actresses have not gone this path, and have instead followed the tried and true route of plastic surgery before slow fade into obscurity. We are just saying that the lead of a ballet should not be a portly middle-aged gentleman unless devoid of other options - which they were not.
It, in fact, made us a little bit angry. It is not that we are not sure he was not a fantastic dancer in his prime. It is, rather, that he is not a good dancer now. We should not be able to hear it when a ballet dancer lands, and we should not be able to see how hard they are working. We are supposed to think that ballet dancers are flying, that instead of being made of mass like you and I, they are made of happiness and talent. He failed to bring us the magic of the ballet, and if he were a woman, this would never have been allowed. We know this, for a fact, because his wife, who has been dancing a year less than he, was relegated to the roles of 'victim' and 'Dracula's Servant' (who did not even wear ballet shoes!).
By contrast, the dancer portraying Renfield was a true pleasure to watch. He captured the air of sycophantic servility that we find ourselves so fond of, and his violent, untimely end at the hands of ‘Dracula’s Brides’ was another one of our favorite scenes (don’t judge us).
Speaking of pleasures to behold, Mina was spectacular - her dancing alone elevated the ballet from mediocre to enjoyable.
Back on the topic of the plot, if you know the story of Dracula at all, you recognize how very… cracked this interpretation is. It seems as though, instead of reading the book, the choreographers watched Coppola’s 1992 “Dracula” and reinterpreted further. We were not expecting Elizabeta. We were not expecting for Renfield to die in the first act (perhaps this was necessary, because the dancer then played Dr. Van Helsing?). We were not expecting Poor Jonathan to spend the whole ballet trapped in a coffin.
On the topic of Poor Jonathan, a brief summary of his activity tells you all you need to know - that he never had it so good as when he was trapped in that damn coffin. To begin the ballet, Jonathan is forced to tell his fiancée that he is leaving to go to Dracula's castle. They do not even get music in a major key for their sweet parting, it was ominous and painful (there is a limit to how shrill we want our piccolo music to be, that is not shrill at all, this piccolo was not even close to that goal). In addition to the lack of appropriate music, this is the scene that set the standard for all other scenes in which characters were talking to each other. The standard was not set particularly high; rather, it was like watching a game of charades where the players did not quite know the rules. We often expected the dancers to hold up their fingers in the universal charades symbol for 'three words' (first word... sounds like...).
But we digress, once Poor Jonathan has left his very pissed off fiancée, he goes to Dracula's castle, which is never a good life decision. He is promptly attacked by Dracula, molested by Dracula's Brides, and shoved in a coffin so Dracula can steal his fiancée. Who then... never mind, we will tell you that bit later.
What we were really not expecting, was for the program to spoil the surprise ending. We cannot say how incredibly awesome we would find the fact that Mina remained under Dracula’s thrall* at the end of the ballet, if we had not known beforehand that it would happen. Except we are sure we would have loved it. Enough to make us love the rest more.
* This means, for those of you not in the know, that Mina remained a vampire. Dracula might not be dead. Further, for the rest of the story we promised you about Poor Jonathan it is this:
After being released from the coffin, he was handed a sword and forced to fight Dracula (sparks literally flew!). This is, of course, a fight he can never win, because Dracula can never die. Luckily for Poor Jonathan, he is then rescued by Dr. Van Helsing, who manages to kill Dracula, so that Poor Jonathan can be reunited with his precious Mina. They share a very moving dance and then go off into the woods, where she then kills him, and runs back into Dracula's abandoned coffin to the sound of Dracula's slightly maniacal laughter.
Poor Jonathan is not even given the honor of being killed on stage.
Poor Jonathan.