www.balletsrussesthemusical.com
On Saturday May 29th 2010 at the award-winning Rosemary Branch Theatre in London, England , the long-awaited new musical by prolific American writer David Reiser made its UK debut in an all-new production presented by the A STAGE KINDLY New Musical Theatre Initiative, directed by Vik Sivalingam of the RSC.
Set within the realm of the world-famous dance company, "Ballets Russes" takes a closer look at the lives and dramas of some of the company's colourful characters - including virtuoso dancer Nijinsky, radical composer Stravinsky, and several celebrated prima ballerinas. This production stars Frank Loman and Arabella Rodrigo amongst others.
A member of the Dramatists Guild, composer and lyricist David Reiser is notable for having written forty-nine musicals, thirty of which are published which according to the Dollee playwrights database makes him a record holder - and he has had his work staged across the United States and also in countries including Finland and Japan. This coming production is the first time his work will have been introduced to a British audience. "I'm very excited about making my UK debut. It's a dream come true to finally have my work staged in London, arguably the most important city in the world for Musical Theatre".
Exerting an influence on the dance world even today, the dance company Ballets Russes was famed for its aesthetics, beautiful costumes, and innovation. It made headlines throughout its history - not least of all for its shocking piece The Rite of Spring. The larger-than-life people who made Ballets Russes the huge success it was also had their own personal drama off-stage and these are explored in this exciting new musical in a strictly limited run.
Giles Howe and Katy Lipson (producers), David Reiser (music/lyrics), Vik Sivalingam (director/choreographer)
Review of BALLETS RUSSES by Howard Loxton (2010) British Theatre Guide
Diaghilev's Ballets Russes employed the music of great composers and showed the work of the greatest dancers and most exciting stage designers of the time so it takes a lot of chutzpah to make a musical about them and that is something that this company and creative team aren't short of and with a little indulgence from the audience, they largely pull it off.
This isn't a musical history of the ballet company, though its fortunes from its creation until the First World War are the background to the plot. It concentrates on impresario Serge Diaghilev, dancer Vaslav Nijinsky and the relationship between them. It is a story that echoes one of those fairytale ballets that led the Russian repertoire when Diaghilev began his company: a tale of love, jealousy and power with the pivotal influence of an interfering fairy. In the boy meets boy, boy meets girl, boy loses boy simplicity of the plot there is a classic format for a traditional musical, with the ballet company itself to provide a chorus.
Bernard Myers' book cuts down the characters to the bare minimum and, though it and one of David Reiser's songs remind us of the continual financial problems that faced Diaghilev, it offers little more than a glimpse of the undercurrents in that talent packed company. What we do get is a series of romantic duets and emotion packed numbers that owe more to musical comedy convention than to the psychology of the real people being impersonated. Though bearing famous names these characters are acting out a fairytale version of the complexities of what actually happened. Those who wrote about them almost all took sides. Myers doesn't, though Frank Loman's Diaghilev sometimes does look demonic there are no villains here, not even Romola (Katrina Gibson) the Hungarian aristocrat who set her cap at Nijinsky, unless you want to see Blake Askew's Baron Gunzburg as a kind of Carabosse.
Director-choreographer Vik Sivalingam wisely does not try to emulate Diaghilev's choreographers, though there is some tongue in cheek reference to Nijinsky's two dimensional classical frieze images and angular port de bras in the dances he invents to suggest the first nights ofL'Apres
These are musical theatre performers, not classical ballet dancers, and though they do pose and pirouette to suggest being in class or rehearsal there is wisely no attempt to pretend they are. James Muller can sing touchingly but he is not a dancer capable of the leaps and elevation that made Nijinsky's reputation. It would be a very lucky actor who had the charisma and sexual attraction with which Nijinsky himself seems to have been endowed on stage but it would help to see Muller's eyes more often share the emotion that is evident in his duets with beautifully sung Diaghilev.
On the first night some voices were not yet matched to the size of the venue and Romola was a little too insistently shrill even for her but this is a very hardworking team who give the show plenty of vitality and that carries it along.
Rachel Wingate's design consists of some swirls of red cloth on the rear wall of a black box with only couple of gold painted chairs draped with a red bordered black cloth apart from the grand piano at which musical director Katy Lipson plays splendidly throughout. In an intriguing directorial touch each character is introduced on their first entrance by taking an item of costume off the wall, a dimming of the lights and then an entrance as the lights come up again. This stylization helps to set the simplicity and theatricality of the production placing the emphasis on the performers and the tuneful music. Reiser has the knack of writing new music that sounds already familiar without being excessively derivative whether warmly romantic or making clever commentary. This is an unpretentious pocket musical that on its own terms works.
This is not an easy show to review. Set backstage at Ballet Russes we witness the 'goings-on' of temperamental Maestro Diaghilev, his discovery and lover Nijinsky, their sponsor Baron Gunzburg - the man with all the money - our Prima Ballerinas and of course our corps de ballet. For those not familiar with 'class' this is where the blood, sweat and tears are spent day after day exercising, stretching, chatting and gossiping. It is a crucial part of any serious dancers life. For me the 'dance' sequences were the most successful.
A special mention must go to James Muller as Nijinsky and Fabian Hartwell as Serge the Company Manager. Both gave credible performances and sang with control and sensitivity. All the gals were good but the woman who stole the top mans man was so appealing and actually looked like a young keen ballet dancer - they all sang and moved well.
Superb Musical Direction and accompanist Katy Lipson kept a firm grasp upon the tempos and the often complicated counter singing - when two or more characters sing difficult lyrics at each other. There was a touch of the South Americas, Gay Paris and good old piano for 'class' music all played faultlessly. Lights and sound from a very talented crew and only four more days to see it.
Some of the dialogue seemed a little over written and song after song popped up from nowhere. There was a certain discomfort as the two men first sang love songs to each other but we soon got used to it.
I expected more bitching, more storm outs, more of everything really and left feeling somewhat unfulfilled. I spoke to four old ex ballet queens (you can tell by the way they walk) who rated it from a 2 (very mean) to a friendly 4 but only just. "Too many cliques" he shouted from across the road and somehow I agree. An excellent company worked well together but some fine tuning and a few minor cuts would I believe improve this piece.
It was a full house with a very warm and generous audience. Full of friends and lovers, fathers and mothers no doubt but all in all a jolly good night out at this amazing venue The Rosemary Branch who yet again have bravely put on a different sometimes difficult musical play to watch.
A 3/5 Star review by Joseph for Boyz Magazine
With the jukebox musical here to stay it's heartening to know that original musicals are still being nurtured, in this case by the theatre initiative, A Stage Kindly. A tale of tantrums and tiaras, Ballet Russes centres around the world-famous Russian ballet company whose ranks were filled by, among others, the legendary dancer Nijinsky and radical composer Stravinsky. And with a bunch of big nameskys like that working under one roof, things were never going to run smoothly, especially for the precocious Nijinsky (James Muller) who through the course of the show undergoes a journey from young, gay dancer to straight married genius. As Nijinsky, Muller is enigmatic as he falls in love with ballet impresario Serge Diaghilev (Frank Loman). However, the same can't be said for the prima ballerinas around him, who hunger for nothing but applause (and the occasional glass of red wine). Part Showgirls in pointe shoes, part gossipy glimpse into a legendary part of ballet's history, Ballet Russes is at once over the top and, during scenes about Nijinsky's marriage, genuinely moving. However, putting on a big show in a small theatre presents its challenges: Ballet Russes may have benefited from a larger space; at times show-stopping notes and the company's theatrical strops are almost too large a burden for the small auditorium. Still, this original production, which melds ballet and musical theatre with artistic legend, is certainly not short on ambition.
A review by G. Dowler for The Dancing Times
Perhaps the strangest and most small-scale tribute to the Ballets Russes centenary has been David Reiser’s pocket show, staged in London’s tiny pub theatre, The Rosemary Branch. Size is not, however, everything, as director Vik Sivalingam’s cast of eight tell the story with gusto of Nijinsky’s time with Diaghilev’s company. Yes, Reiser does play loose with the historical facts (prima ballerina Matilde Tchessinska [sic] danced only one season with the company), and it does, admittedly, take a little time to adjust to the idea of a singing Nijinsky and a dancing Diaghilev, but there is much to commend in this little piece. Reiser is at his best when his tongue is firmly in his cheek – the vaudeville number for Tchessinska “When you’re intimate with the Czar” and the latino-rhythmed “We’re off to Buenos Aires” (for the company’s South American tour) are pure enjoyment; when he ventures into love songs à la Disney, it is all a little more shaky. If there is one major fault, it is that Nijinsky and his oddness only come to the fore in the second half, leading to a genuinely affecting break with Diaghilev. With the minimum of props, the all-dancing, all-singing cast launch into the work with total commitment, the laurels going to Frank Loman’s measured Diaghilev whose loss of Nijinsky to the scheming Romola was keenly conveyed – he has a terrific singing voice to boot. Rapidly paced, with nothing outstaying its welcome, Ballets Russes, the Musical has secured not a little degree of success and deserves a further outing, with some work done to it and opened out somewhat. – G. Dwyer for The Dancing Times
Leila's Blog for All In London
It's hard to know what to expect from a musical about a ballet company. The famous Ballets Russes company made a star of Vaslav Nijinsky, was the first to use contemporary artists such as Dali and Chanel to design stage sets and costumes, and frequently courted controversy with ballets such as 'The Rite of Spring' - which caused riots upon opening - and 'L' Apres Midi D'un Faune'. Furthermore, diva-like tempers and tantrums within the company threatened to tear it apart on many occasions. So how would the characters, dramas, music, and the ballet itself translate as a musical? The show focuses on company director Serge Diaghilev's hiring of Vaslav Nijinsky and subsequent infatuation. The two embark on an affair only for Diaghilev to soon be replaced as the object of Nijinsky's affections by the apprentice ballerina Romola Pulzsky. The two marry and Nijinsky inevitably leaves the company; a passionate dialogue ensues where Diaghilev urges the dancer to accept that he is a homosexual and his marriage is a sham. "You have entered a suicide pact, not a marriage" he says. In the meantime the company has faced many financial problems as well as the tantrums of prima ballerina Matilda Tchessinska, embittered over Diaghilev's choice of a different dancer over her. Actress Arabella Rodrigo has the part of the temperamental, vengeful Tchessinska down to a tee, displaying true star quality as she swoops on stage wrapped in a fur coat, and delivers killer one-liners, "Mind your tongue, you might trip over it" she warns Diaghilev. The intimate setting of the Rosemary Branch Theatre in Islington is the venue for this highly entertaining play. The theatre, which sits atop a pub, seats a mere 50 people - it is even possible to hear the whispers of the actors as they prepare for their scenes if sitting near the wall, a thrilling detail which only adds to the experience. - Leila's Blog @ All In London