From the Oscars to the barre
One of the first productions of this year’s New Zealand Festival has big shoes to fill, as Tom Hunt reports.
Paul Mathews doesn’t look a lot like Sam Neill. And Alex Ferreira seems a bit too, well, dainty, to be Harvey Keitel. Then again, Oscar and Palme d’Or winning movie The Piano –a noir-esque portrayal of domestic violence and betrayal in New Zealand of a bygone era – doesn’t seem an obvious fit for the ballet.
But the Royal New Zealand Ballet must be doing something right.
A couple of weeks out from the show’s opening night, Dame Jane Campion, the writer and director of the 1993 film, sent the dancers a message.
‘‘She said she had seen a few things in the media and ... what she has seen she is quite happy with,’’ says Mathews, a 13-year-veteran at the national ballet company.
In a cavernous studio above Wellington’s St
James Theatre, the pair are taking time out before one of the New Zealand Festival’s opening shows, The Piano: The Ballet.
Mathews plays the husband, Stewart, originally played by Sam Neill in Campion’s film. He is the betrayed husband to mute Ada. He is the one turned domestic abuser when he chops Ada’s finger off after he discovers her affair.
To suggest he likes his character is a bit much – ‘‘I don’t really have any patience for violence’’ – but he does have sympathy for what he goes through in the story’s leadup: Bringing his wife to New Zealand, then attempting to be a gentleman, until she cheats on him.
‘‘I have always played the bad guy in a lot of ballets so this is just another villain for me.’’
Ask the same of Ferreira, who plays George Baines – played by Keitel in the movie – the loner-turned lover who cuckolds Stewart.
‘‘I can’t say that I do [like him],’’ Ferreira quickly replies.
‘‘Even through the whole time we are working on creating these characters, at least I don’t think I can relate much to it ...
‘‘It is too horrible. It doesn’t matter why or when – it’s still horrible so it is pretty hard.’’
The conversation upstairs at the St James is getting decidedly grim with all this talk of violence and betrayal in colonial New Zealand. Then it moves onto children.
Anna Paquin plays the role of Flora – Ada’s daughter in the movie – and the role for which she would go on to breathlessly accept an Oscar.
‘‘It is too horrible. It doesn’t matter why or when – it’s still horrible so it is pretty hard.’’
Dancer Alex Ferreira on the production’s storyline. He plays George Baines (Harvey Keitel’s character in the movie).
The ballet version uses three girls for the role as, after Wellington, the production moves on around New Zealand. Those 12-year-old girls – Gemma Lew, of Kapiti, with Bianca Lungo and Hazel Couper both of Auckland – bring a refreshing joy to rehearsals, Ferreira says.
‘‘Children are so unpredictable. They bring so much joy and energy. They bring so much new information. Just because they are so young, their perspective on everything we are doing is so different to what we have.’’
As well as sending the ballet company a letter of encouragement, Campion – alongside producer Jan Chapman and Saddleback Productions – also gave permission for the iconic New Zealand film to be transformed for the stage. The director won’t be making the ballet’s opening night, however.
What was originally a short work has been expanded to a full ballet, just 10 minutes under twohours’ long – 11 minutes shorter than the original film, though the same dark vibe will no doubt remain.