Artistic Director:
Aurelien Scannella
Marc Ribaud
Music:
Ferdinand Herold and John Lanchbery,
Set Designer:
Richard Roberts
Costume Designer:
Lexi De Silva
Lighting Designer:
Jon Buswell
Presented by: West Australian Ballet
Canberra
Theatre Centre – October 15 – 18, 2014
Reviewed by
Bill Stephens
The West Australian Ballet have revived one of
the oldest ballets in the classical repertoire with an inspired production
brimming with joie de vivre, spirited dancing, laugh-out-loud comedy and French
chic.
Originally
inspired by a painting of a young woman being berated by her mother, “La Fille
Mal Gardee” received its first performances way back in 1789. Since then it has
been performed by many ballet companies with different choreographies. However the
version created by Frederick Ashton for the Royal Ballet in London in 1960, and
still performed by the Australian Ballet, has become regarded by many as more
or less the official version.
This new version,
French choreographer, Marc Ribaud, remains faithful to the original story, but has
eschewed the maypole dance and the dancing farm animals. He’s kept the action
in rural France, but it is now set in the 1950’s and Colas rides a motor-bike
and wears James Dean leathers. Ribaud has also retained the tradition of having
the role of Lise’s mother, Simone, played by a man, although he has softened
some of the usual pantomime-dame elements of the role in favour of more warmth
and charm in the character.
This version
commences in a sun-drenched courtyard, where Lise (Jayne Smeulders) and Colas
(Matthew Lehman) dance a languorous pas de deux for which Colas is nude from
the waist up.
The erotic
mood is broken when four young men join them to perform a series of energetic dances
in which the quirky choreography slyly evokes chickens and farm animals. The
men in turn are joined by four young women, all obviously friends of Lise and
Colas, who has by now added a singlet to his costume, and all, join in the
vigorous dancing.
Their
merriment attracts Lise’s mother, Simone, (Robert Mills), who admonishes the
friends, sends them packing and sets Lise to work churning butter. But no
sooner does Simone turn her back, than Colas returns to flirt with Lise.
Eventually
the rich and pompous merchant Thomas (Graig Lord-Sole) arrives with his
uninspiring son, Alain (Andre Santos), in tow, intending to arrange a marriage
between Lise and Alain. Unsurprisingly, the rest of the ballet is concerned
with the efforts of Lise and Colas to thwart the efforts of Simone and merchant
Thomas.
As the
wilful Lise, Jayne Smeulders is sheer delight. Her dancing is confident and
beautifully phrased. She is also a consummate actress, who knows how to play
comedy without artifice or archness.
Matthew
Lehman, as Colas, also impresses. Though
not as strong as Smeulders in the acting department, he looks great as a James
Dean look-alike, is a strong and considerate partner in the pas de deux, and an
especially thrilling dancer particularly in his Act 11 solos.
Robert Mills
is outstanding as Lise’s mother Simone capturing all his laughs with strong
comedic timing. His clog dance, flanked by four male dancers in tap shoes, is a
real highlight.
But the big
surprise is Andre Santos as the unfortunate Alain, more at ease with his
beloved umbrella than he is with Lise. Santos
tosses off Alain’s intricate, eccentric solos with dazzling virtuosity, while
providing a characterisation that is both witty and touching. Graig Lord-Sole also
scores as Alain’s wobbly-legged father.
The entire
company look terrific in this ballet. Dancing
with a palpable sense of joyfulness, they execute the idiosyncratic
choreography, with its bent-wrists, up-turned feet and odd body twists, with
admirable attention to detail, while at the same time engaging enthusiastically
with the story and the characters.
The six
young dancers recruited in Canberra, to play the village children, also acquitted
themselves well with their dancing, and echoed the ensemble’s engagement with the
story.
Aurelian
Scannella’s new production of “La Fille Mal Gardee” for the West Australian
Ballet is a co-production with the Queensland Ballet, so is destined to be seen
widely. With Richard Roberts’s impressively substantial and attractive
settings, Lexi De Silva’s very pretty and flattering costumes and Marc Ribaud’s
cheeky and entertaining choreography, this new imagining of one of the oldest
ballets in the repertoire could well become the new norm for “La Fille Mal
Gardee”.
 |
| Photo: Greer Versteeg |
This review appears on the Australian Arts Review website.