Cheap sensationalism

Spectator, The, Feb 13, 1999 by Poesio, Giannandrea

Giannandrea Poesio

One of the joys of interviewing applicants tor the undergraduate courses offered by the dance department I work for is to listen to their often revealing answers. Recently, a lad, who had been asked to name a ballet he had seen and to comment on it, replied rather enthusiastically, 'I have forgotten the title but it was great; it had a guy peeing all over a naked king.' I am not sure if David Bintley would have enjoyed the answer as much as I did, though. After all, no one would cherish the idea of being remembered by future generations of dance historians as the choreographer who resorted to such a debatable stunt.

Bintley's Edward II, the ballet which contains this rather explicit scene, owes most, if not all of its success to this sort of allegedly daring and `never-seen-before' act. There is little doubt that features such as the dungeon scene exert a particular fascination for those who still find it hard to believe that a half-naked, leather-clad jailer can live in the world of ballet: a world stereotypically inhabited only by swan princesses and sugar plum fairies. What these people get is exactly what they expect: a far too accessible and undemanding dance show where gratuitous sensationalism, dazzling sets and even more dazzling costumes make up for the lack of any choreographic or dramatic depth.

Do not get me wrong, though. I am not a puritan and I do not have anything against pure spectacle. Some of the most popular and revered titles of the classical repertoire were originally conceived as pure spectacle and relied heavily on all sorts of theatrical tricks. But, despite their intrinsic oddities, these ballets also boasted a consistent structure and narrative, two vital qualities that Edward II almost wholly lacks. What I found really irritating was the abundance of incongruities that debase both acts of the ballet.

Saluted by some as a rare example of 'gay' ballet, this Edward II is, in terms of gayness, nearer to the tame homosexuality of EastEnders than to that of any Jarman film. Although the scurrilous sequence derived from the Roman de Fauvel and the incriminated dungeon scene populated by characters out of Tom of Finland's drawings leave little to the imagination, the relationship between Gaveston and the King is, instead, never portrayed explicitly. The two lovers are seen constantly engaged in silly games and prissy duets which are far too reminiscent of the often twee and asexual pas de deux from the Imperial Ballet tradition. Needless to say, the literalism of the two scenes mentioned above clashes with the Disney-like choreographic allegory of the relationship between the two men. Whether such contrast is intentional whether Bintley was trying to make a statement about the thwarted sexual freedom of the two male lovers - is difficult to say. The stilted narrative of the piece, that stems from a choreographically untranslatable dramatic source, impinges considerably on a full appreciation of the possibly covert symbolism of the piece - even though a series of naive and predictable solutions reminds us constantly of the similarity between those days and the present times.

The most disappointing component of this ballet is its choreography. Unlike the refined and humorous Hobson's Choice or the lyrically intense The Protecting Veilperformed this week at Sadler's Wells Edward II has none of Bintley's usual rich choreographic inventiveness. On the contrary, it appears to be a sophisticated regurgitation of trite pre-existing formulae that encompass Jooss's Expressionist work The Green Table, some of Yuri Grigorovich's most heroic Soviet ballets and some washed-out moments from recent examples of Tanztheater. Even the long duets - which are usually Bintley's forte - looked as if they had been constructed on an excessively limited number of steps.

Yet who cares about choreography these days? The roaring ovation that greeted the end of the ballet's first performance in London proved that cheap sensationalism and lavish empty spectacle are the right ingredients for success. One can only hope that, prompted by all this enthusiasm, the same people will also rush to the second programme of Birmingham Royal Ballet's season at Sadler's Wells, which, at least on paper, looks far more appealing.