Swan Lake, Burswood Theatre October 2009
On Thursday night, B organised tickets for 6 to the Swan Lake ballet on at Burswood Theatre this week
I really don’t know the story of Swan Lake, so this is my memory of the plot (and I may well be wrong!):
- Lots of attractive young things flirting and laughing enjoying hanging out together
- Husband and Wife get married
- Very Important Lady shows up and also some kids
- Cosacks show up and dance for some reason
- Mistress tries it on with Husband and he is vaguely interested but faithfully does not dance with her (much)
- Wife and Mistress have a dance-off
- Mistress and Husband dance some more and this time is seems like she has won him over
- Wife has conniptions
- Weird large hat Nurses/Nuns and Doctor turn up and take Wife off to the mental asylum
- Wife is locked away in mental asylum and is unimpressed with this situation
- Wife is still in mental asylum and made to have a bath by Nurses/Nuns
- Wife sees Husband wandering past the window (no doubt he was just in the neighbourhood) which sets her off in a dramatic episode
- Despite this, Doctor lets Husband visit Wife
- Wife is deeply conflicted
- Husband sees Very Important Lady walk past and has to leave suddenly
- Wife is suddenly free of the confines of the mental asylum
- Lots of ladies in white tutus get about on the “pond” (they do quite an amazing job of looking like swans actually)
- Four ballerinas with interlinked hands (“cygnets”) glide across stage, very pretty
- Wife is back in the mental asylum, looks like it was all a dream
- Lots of people turn up to a ball wearing black, including Husband and Mistress (who seem to be together)
- They all seem to be waiting around
- Gates are nearly closed but Wife manages to sneak in
- Mistress is quite upset and bitchfight ensues
- Wife doesn’t win
- Mistress and Husband dance together but its kind of angry and they know they can’t be together anymore
- Husband and Wife dance
- Doctor and Nurses/Nuns turn up and ruin the party
- Wife wants to be a swan again so throws herself into the lake
- Wife proceeds to drown in a very elegant fashion and lake disappears down the plughole (a very cool effect)
- Much applause all round
I have deliberately not read reviews of the show or other background because I didn’t want to colour my ideas of that it “should” have looked like. The Graeme Murphy interpretation (I guess you would call it that) was amazingly elegant and beautiful to watch. The movements were so smooth and group scenes in particular looked fantastic as so many people moved together to make it all work so well. The white tutus and lake dancing is what I was expecting to see, and it was great - they did look so convincingly like swans with arms held back and moving like wings and feet on points paddling madly under the surface.
On the subject of feet, I was thinking about those poor dancers on their points. It looks amazing of course but I can’t help thinking that their feet will suffer for life. The costumes also deserve a special mention, the designs and colours were superlative. Sets were very very cool, from the summer’s day background of the first act, to the pipes and white walls of the mental asylum to the wrought iron gates of the last act. Also the orchestra were great, and we had a good view of them. I have been a fan of Tchaikovsky’s since my teenage years, so was actually much more familiar with the score than with the choreography. Tchaikovsky composed such impressive and emotional music - music that makes you feel! It’s very rock actually, and sometimes quite loud, which could be the reason I love it so much. I also appreciated the work of the musicians.
After the end of the ballet, E and I saw the line for the parking machines so decided to retire to the Sirocco café for a hot drink. We overheard an older lady in the line discussing that she thought the ballet wasn’t up to scratch. However we didn’t really care because we enjoyed ourselves immensely. We ordered some drinks and found a seat… Given the ballet had just finished and they had lots of keen customers, it was strange that the café kept half of the restaurant closed, however, given that this is Perth, they would have clearly rather not have the customers. We found some relatively comfy seats, and the service was surprisingly quick but having used dishes on the table was unpleasant. Unfortunately the hot chocolate wasn’t too nice (but I drank it anyway) and they café didn’t have any small edibles (it was cake or nothing, I chose nothing). E had tea, its pretty impossible to get that wrong. We had fun people-watching and relaxing.
When we were ready to go we encountered the only really bad experience of the evening. It started when we tried to get back to the car and the section of the building required for transit was closed (including escalators). We walked through the main building to the other car park and tried walking around the outside of the building but there was a fence so we couldn’t get through. From there we talked to assorted staff members, some well intentioned and some uninterested, and had tremendous difficulty getting through the underground car park out to the correct outdoor section. Seriously, it was a piss off. E’s feet were very sore and the cap came off one of her heels (not happy Jan).
Eventually we found our way, no thanks to the vague directions (come on - walking through a tunnel was necessary!) to the correct car park. No, it was not a poor sense of direction (I know you are thinking that). We knew exactly where the car was located but were prevented from getting there through closed parts of the building. We were both very shitty but relieved to have found our car. Unfortunately for us, the pain-in-the-arse continued as we tried to pay for our parking (now half an hour on top of what it would have been), and found that the parking machines accepted only gold coins. The price was $6, we had notes and gold and silver coinage but not enough gold to make up the $6. After a confusing call to parking dude, his insistence that the machines only take gold coins and we think suggestion that we go find change back in the main building, then his random disconnection of the conversation, we managed to find another machine which would accept $5 notes. We were happy to leave as quickly as possible. Yes these are relatively small things but in combination, after a long (and enjoyable) day and late at night, these were seriously annoying and needless intrusions on our time. It was totally unnecessary and a waste of time.