On a magical journey with Alice
The Royal Ballet could hardly have chosen a more eye-popping or enjoyable production with which to launch its autumn season. And this is all the more gratifying given that the ballet in question is only six years old – a mere five in its current, three-act reincarnation.
Christopher Wheeldon’s phantasmagorical creation has had the odd naysayer over these few years, but don’t believe them. True, it never quite escapes the episodic, “and then, and then” structure of Carroll’s famous book, and there’s the odd character that you perhaps wish Wheeldon had made more of. But the show has so much going for it in other respects that it feels ungrateful to carp.
Cinematic but also unmistakably balletic, Joby Talbot’s complex, theme driven score – coruscatingly orchestrated with the help of Christopher Austin – is full of magical surprises. Expertly aided and abetted by lighting guru Natasha Katz, designer Bob Crowley has had an absolute field day too, exploiting every means at his disposal – from puppetry to projection – to send us down the rabbit-hole with the heroine.
Wheeldon, meanwhile, absolutely matches his collaborator’s contributions. This is a ballet that eloquently and respectfully reflects his Royal Ballet heritage (from its threeact structure, reliance on mime, and alternation of grand waltzes and intimate pas de deux, to its very Ashtonian reliance on largely crossdressing comedy) while nevertheless feeling entirely 21st-century and absolutely its own thing. Together with dramaturge Nicholas Wright, he brings Alice even more to the fore than she is in the book, getting her involved in the action wherever possible, and delving deep into his choreographic box of tricks to bring alive each of the characters she encounters.
Admittedly, Wednesday night’s performance – performed largely by the original, 2011 cast – wasn’t quite perfect. Quite apart from a scrappy, under-rehearsed feeling to some of the boys’ ensembles, the fabulous Ed Watson inevitably can’t, at 40, dart about with the same neurotic energy that he brought to the White Rabbit six years ago. Similarly, although as handsome and dependable a partner as ever, Federico Bonelli, 38, doesn’t quite have the youthful bounce that the role of the garden boy/knave of Hearts demands.
However, Laura Morera absolutely nails her twin roles as Alice’s mother and (supremely) the Queen of Hearts. As the latter, wheeled around in an increasingly bulbous red contraption that makes her look part queen bee, part preying mantis, part propane gas canister, she is a comic treat: gleefully psychotic, with a smile that could cut steel, but also bringing razor-sharp musicality and blistering precision to every step and gesture. Her delivery of Wheeldon and Talbot’s Rose Adagio from-hell is a particular joy.
Other splendid performances abound. Stephen Mcrae has lost none of his bite as a dazzling, tap-dancing Mad Hatter, while also very much at the lip-smackingly deranged end of the spectrum is Kristen Mcnally’s meat-cleaver-wielding cook.
Top marks go, above all, to Lauren Cuthbertson. As Alice, she avoids all the pitfalls of an adult playing a child, bringing pathos, wide-eyed innocence and matter-of-fact resourcefulness to the character. Wheeldon created the role on her, and it still feels like the part she was born to play.