‘Cheri’ right in step with Colette
War is hell. So is love. Let’s dance. And let’s talk, too.
That’s the formula for director-choreographer Martha Clarke’s compact and compelling — but uneven — dance-theater mashup of Colette’s classic, “Cheri.”
The setting is Paris, 1912 — decades before the word “cougar” was code for women of a certain age with a passion for men of a younger age.
The relationship between passionate 49-year-old Leah (American Ballet Theatre prima ballerina Alessandra Ferri) and feckless 24-year-old Cheri (principal dancer Herman Cornejo) unfolds as a dance. Both performers are a whirl of sensuality, grace and muscle, demonstrating the heat of the May-December affair through expressive arms and legs and leaps.
Clarke’s staging is lush. Her work has rightly been described as moving pictures — and here the intertwined lovers and rumpled bedsheets resemble classical paintings. Pianist Sarah Rothenberg accompanies the lithe movements with melancholy works of Ravel and Debussy, but the show isn’t just a pas de deux — there’s drama, too.
After his initial blush with love, Cheri leaves Leah for a younger, richer woman. Then it’s off to war for Cheri, who returns haunted and unsteady. Of course, he hooks up with Leah for a reunion anyway.
Amy Irving, who plays Charlotte, Cheri’s mother and Leah’s so-called best friend, tells much of the plot via monologues by playwright Tina Howe. Irving, as always, is an elegant presence with a creamy voice. But the four speeches are intrusive.
Irving isn’t helped by her floor-scraping gown, which announces her entrance with a distracting whooshing noise that recalls Jacob Marley’s chains.
Yes, it’s nitpicky. But mood pieces are like the human heart. No good comes when they’re broken.