FINELY CRAFTED DRAMA
Dance adaptation of The Winter’s Tale strips away the excess and focuses on the story’s emotional core,
The Winter’s Tale
(out of 4) National Ballet of Canada. Choreography by Christopher Wheeldon. Until Nov. 19 at the Four Seasons Centre, 145 Queen St. W.; national.ballet.ca or 416-345-9595 or 1-866-345-9595
If Shakespeare’s King Leontes had had an able shrink to help him work out his serious psychological issues, we would not have a play called The Winter’s Tale or, in consequence, the 2014 dance adaptation choreographed for Britain’s Royal Ballet by Christopher Wheeldon that on Friday opened the fall hometown season of co-producing company the National Ballet of Canada.
Leontes’ pathological jealousy triggers the dramatic action that, by the end of a plot-packed first act, has cost the lives of son-and-heir Mamillius, trusted chief-of-staff Antigonus and, apparently, Hermione, the innocent queen Leontes accuses of capitaloffence adultery. Not even the saintly Paulina, superbly portrayed by Xiao Nan Yu, can convince Leontes to accept that the daughter Hermione bears is his own flesh and blood. Thus the child is condemned.
Watching Piotr Stanczyk portray Leontes underlines how well choreographer Wheeldon understands the kind of jealousy Shakespeare deals with in The Winter’s Tale. Stanczyk is a deft hand at revealing inner demons, never more so than as Leontes, a role he was surely born to dance. As it contorts and bends and curls in on itself, Stanczyk’s body seems consumed by venom.
Jealousy, an all too common human failing, rears its nasty head in several of Shakespeare’s plays, most famously in Othello; but in that case, the susceptible title character falls prey to his supposed friend Iago, the evil, lying “green-eyed monster.”
With Leontes, it’s different. No conspiring toad is whispering in his ear. The monster lurks within, an unex- plained dormant poison that, to the fright and incomprehension of his court, explodes with violent repercussions when the Sicilian king convinces himself that his dear friend Polixenes, the visiting King of Bohemia, has impregnated Hermione.
The Winter’s Tale is a notorious head-scratcher. Even allowing for poetic licence, so much in it seems implausible. It probably explains why Wheeldon is, so far as is known, the only ballet choreographer to tackle it. Wheeldon hasn’t entirely solved the puzzle but, in stripping away the fat and focusing on the main themes of love and redemption, he’s crafted a fine dance-drama.
It’s buoyed by Joby Talbot’s score — way to go National Ballet Orchestra and onstage banda — and made visually magical by Bob Crowley’s designs, working in fruitful harmony with Natasha Katz’s lighting, Daniel Brodie’s projections and Basil Twist’s silk effects.
This is the National Ballet’s second run at The Winter’s Tale — the first was two years ago — and the opening-night leads are unchanged. Experience has allowed them to grow in their roles, mining them for dramatic nuance.
Most notably, Hannah Fischer, relatively young and inexperienced in 2015, has acquired new authority as Hermione. The solo through which she pleads her innocence has heartbreaking conviction and when — spoiler alert — she finally emerges from 16 years in hiding, her forgiveness of Leontes’ inexcusable behaviour is subtly coloured. She forgives, but you know she has not forgotten.
Jillian Vanstone as the previously abandoned royal child Perdita and Naoye Ebe as disguised-as-a-shepherd Prince Florizel, her ardent suitor, seem more in love than ever as they frolic under the boughs of a massive oak in Act II’s sunny May Day merrymaking. Harrison James’s Polixenes somehow manages to balance the character’s basic decency with unnerving bursts of regal anger.
In case you were wondering, The Winter’s Tale does have what passes for a happy ending, compromised as it may be by tragic past events.
This is not a ballet for children. It deals with some of human nature’s ugliest features and, like so many historically based dramas, blithely accepts the patriarchal entitlement and abuse of women that is sadly as prevalent now as it was in the era the ballet depicts.
Thankfully, there’s one marvellous moment when Paulina loses her cool and tries to knock some sense into Leontes with a vigorous fist-pounding. It’s hard to restrain a cheer.