Reviews

This Modern Love

If your dance taste errs towards women in potato sacks, can you still applaud for men in tights? CLAIRE MICCIO takes in opening night at the Boston Ballet’s new staging of Don Quixote.

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The third act just started, two whole scenes remain, and I feel as though I’ve just eaten an entire bag of candy corn. Now that Kitri and Basilio have managed to outwit Don Quixote, Lorenzo, and a band of gypsies, they are celebrating the win with friends in a tavern. They whirl each other around, yuk it up with beer, big grins, and jaw-dropping dance moves. The beer, albeit fake, has me thinking I’m too sober for this. Apparently, I can’t stomach flair.

I ruffle through my playbill to the synopsis. Things aren’t looking good for my fortitude. Kitri and Basilio will be separated and united again, and what’s more, they will receive a blessing from the very people who sought to keep them apart. I’m worried the merriment may cause my head to explode. I feel bad, knowing how lucky I am to be sitting here, in an orchestra seat on opening night, at the Boston Ballet’s staging of Rudolf Nureyev’s Don Quixote, but I can’t ignore the feeling that all these smiling girls with chignons on stage are sticking bobby pins in my soul.


* * *

The evening has been an adjustment. For one, I tend to avoid this area of downtown Boston; it’s grimy, clogged with cars, and infested with students. Bostonians who are full of shit like to call these few blocks of historic landmarks the “Theater District,” as if we have a viable arts community within them, rather than a handful of traveling companies and Broadway-bound shows, and enough people willing to fill the seats. It’s also my first time inside the Wang Center for Performing Arts, and I cannot seem to reconcile its 19th-century American office building façade with its faux 17th-century French palace interior. From the outside, the building is a thick body of stone with windows and columns, and a small marquee pinned to its waist. In Boston, that’s not enough to turn your head.

When the ruched red velvet curtain rises, and the performance begins I have to remind myself that Don Quixote is a show, and I can’t overthink it—at least not until the curtain falls.But, from the inside, I admit I’m surprised: The Wang Center has got some serious grandeur. Marble staircases encircle a palatial lobby, leading you slowly to the open mezzanine. A little girl ducks by me in patent black flats, prancing excitedly and pulling up her sagging tights. Chandeliers illuminate crisp frescoes, curvy statues, and a glut of gold leaf ornamentation. It’s my friend Sarah’s first time in the building, too. We confess to each other that although the design isn’t our taste, we’re happy it’s here, and somewhat troubled that a fancy, European-style theater is kept so buried in present-day Boston. I chalk it up to our flinty, thrifty Yankee heritage. If working on Beacon Hill has taught me anything, it’s that true New England wealth does not brag, it bargains.

There are a number of little girls in the crowd, dressed in their best outfits, carrying tiny purses like I once brought to church, stuffed with markers, only here I wouldn’t need to have used them. The performance would have been enough. When I was a kid I would have begged to see this kind of show, loving all the flouncing tutus and technical feats that come with big company ballet productions. I danced for nine years, quitting as I entered high school, only to go back to it for fun in college, though without the pointe shoes. Tonight’s performance is the first classical ballet I’ve seen in three years and I’m not used to all the pageantry; in the intervening time, I’ve gone modern.

When I was in school, I used to cram into the viewing rooms at the performing arts library, and watch videos about Martha Graham, Merce Cunningham, Paul Taylor, José Limón, Alvin Ailey, Twyla Tharp, and Mark Morris, hoping that someday I’d have the chance to see their stuff in person. Since then I’ve had the opportunity to see quite a few. I didn’t love all of them, especially not the women rolling around in potato sacks in Cambridge or the Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Company, but I could always relate in some way to what I saw.

When the ruched red velvet curtain rises, and the performance begins I have to remind myself that Don Quixote is a show, and I can’t overthink it—at least not until the curtain falls. With modern dance, I rarely have to let myself be duped: So often, it seems an abstract expression of abstract feeling, a loose narrative. Now, suddenly, I’m looking at stage with scenery, props, and pomp, and I’m not sure what to do with it. I guess I’m not used to dance carrying a plot we’re all meant to agree on.


* * *

Tonight’s comedy is the usual condensed story of Don Quixote, a delusional man with a penchant for knights’ tales, who sets off to rescue a fictional heroine, with his dopey friend Sancho Panza in tow. Soon he finds himself entwined in the lives of two buoyant young lovers, Kitri and Basilio. Hilarity and adventure ensue as we follow them on their romp with gypsies, windmills, drunken townsfolk, duels, and fake deaths. It’s fast-paced but easy to follow and obviously meant to be a lot of fun.

In order to convey the story, the dancing is very theatric, and there are a lot of comic gestures to put up with. For example, Sancho Panza wobbles to and fro, groping girls and getting whacked in the head. And Basilio, as the heartthrob, struts like rooster, sending all the cast, even the stage parsley—the dancers who garnish the lead roles—into swoons. Basilio and Kitri are the real protagonists, and it seems they’re the showstoppers, garnering constant applause. Kitri dances with a Spanish fan, folding it with a clap, mid-air, in time with the orchestra; Basilio does two turns in one jump and lands lithely in an arabesque. Though it’s impossible to make it look effortless, they do appear as if they’ve been practicing the steps since conception. It’s beyond me how dancers do it, and every time I witness one of these physically demanding feats, I can’t help but wonder if the person needs an Epsom salt bath and some Valium to get to sleep afterwards. Just as virtuosity isn’t necessarily meaningful, athletic ballet isn’t necessarily expressive. It’s impressive, sure, because it’s beautiful and so few of us can do it, but to me, the most striking choreography has something to do with what it evokes and how it makes me feel.

Perhaps I can’t process three hours of finely tuned movements unless the dancers look sad.And though the last scene is moving along quickly, I’m feeling like I can’t take much more. All those guys getting lit at the bar before the show had the right idea. Even Sarah, who spent three years in Washington, D.C. with the Shakespeare Theatre, looked ready to bolt in the second act, right after the black-screen-and-fog-machine dream sequence. What’s killing me most is the solos and continuous bursts of applause. A ballet is a story, told with dancing and music. Dancers shouldn’t reach out to accept praise when they are in character and the audience shouldn’t offer it until the lights go out. If theater actors were allowed to acknowledge their awesomeness after a good scene, the audience would abandon their seats. Was classical ballet always like Olympic ice skating?

During the finale the dancers pull out all the stops. Nearly all the cast is on stage and a part of the action, rejoicing Kitri and Basilio’s declaration of love with flamboyant partnering and genuine smiles. As rows of dancers move precisely in time, it’s clear to me that Don Quixote is by no means a bad ballet, it’s just not the type I find rewarding. My heart beats for Mark Morris and his ability to steep his stories in sex, humor, and innovation. By comparison, Don Quixote seems to concentrate too heavily on traditional technique and tells too dull a story. And, although it’s been a while since I’ve seen it, I can still recall absolutely loving the classical ballet Giselle. Perhaps I can’t process three hours of finely tuned movements unless the dancers look sad.

I go home happy that I came, but willing to wait another three years to return. And until then I’ll continue to risk another performance of women rolling around in potato sacks and fall soundly asleep under my black-light Morris poster.