Intriguing, outré, yet not fully involving
Les Enfants Terribles Barbican
This was a tantalising prospect. Thanks to his unique fusion of lustrously pulsating arpeggios and alluringly wrong-footing chord shifts, Philip Glass has long been the most beguiling of the American minimalist composers. And who better than talented, perennially mischiefmaking choreographer Javier De Frutos to help bring this tale of a worrying brother-sister relationship to life?
Based on Jean Cocteau’s 1929 novel, and written by Glass in 1996, this “dance opera” (part of the Barbican’s
Glass at 80 weekend) traces the inexorable spiral of Paul and Elisabeth (Lise). After being severed from the outside world, first when he is hit by – of all things – a snowball with a stone inside, and then by their mother’s death, they remain in their room, acting out bizarre fantasies in what they call “the game”. And the novelty of sorts here is that the siblings are each played, often simultaneously, by five people: four dancers, and one singer.
You’d expect De Frutos to pounce on the incestuous implications of all this, and pounce he does. From the outset, when we see Paul and Lise at bath time, this is choreography less for siblings than for lovers, all passionately extended legs and orgasmic arches of the back, with a sexual energy running through it. The Royal Ballet’s Ed Watson and Zenaida Yanowksy (the most prominent of the Pauls and Lises) dive in with giddy commitment, while the singers bring plenty of personality to their respective roles, and JeanMarc Puissant’s constantly shifting, stage-foreshortening set – complete with immaculately realised projections by Tal Rosner – helps tell the story very clearly indeed.
On opening night, however, a stage malfunction 50 minutes in caused the whole thing to grind to a halt for some time, which rather shattered the illusion. And, more fundamentally, having multiple dancers on stage makes it hard to maintain the necessary sense of claustrophobia, the impression of a world in which other friends and lovers are essentially intruders. Super as some of the other Pauls and Lises are, you wish you could just focus on Watson and Yanowksy.
Moreover, Glass’s unusually spiky score – for just three pianos – is less immersive than you might hope, and arguably less so than the intensity of the scenario demands. Despite everyone’s valiant efforts, you struggle to care about the characters’ fates.
One should mention a terrific turn from singer Paul Curievici as the narrator-cum-villain Gérard, as well as Venezuelan-born De Frutos’s enjoyably impish dash of Last Supper imagery in the latter stages. But it all ultimately feels remote: an intriguing and mildly
outré experiment, rather than a fully involving work of art.