A dream within a dream

Published on October 10, 2007

Ballet

Sunday's performance of "A Midsummer Night's Dream" was a perfect marriage of reality and reverie, as well as classical ballet and its modern interpretation.

Presented by the Swiss Embassy, the Zurich Ballet's adaptation of Shakespeare's play proved to be the most memorable performance of the two weeks, bringing the curtain down on the ballet segment of this year's Festival of Dance and Music in Bangkok.

The audience sat stunned in their seats for a few seconds at the end of the show, before rising to their feet to reward the company with the festival's longest round of cheers and applause.

Artistic director Heinz Spoerli reworked the play-based ballet and made it totally his own, combining the classic story ballet with modern stage projections and lighting effects.

The performance started with the 50-plus member company "rehearsing" the ballet to the accompaniment of Steve Reich's "Dreaming".

A line of dancers appeared in silhouette on a curved screen stage left and performed a series of steps, which were reflected and duplicated stage right in a metallic-looking screen. Eventually, the dancers emerged from behind the screens in warm-ups, continuing to "rehearse" before being shooed away by the stage crew.

The latter, long-stick brooms in hand, seemed to be preparing to sweep up but instead arranged their own dramatic version of the "Dream's" Pyramus and Thisbe interlude for the Duke and the Duchess' wedding.

The "rude mechanicals" - actors from the Royal Shakespeare Company - were giving the audience an amusing performance in front of the reflecting metallic screen when Puck, the mischievous sprite, appeared behind the same screen, now magically transparent, and crept down from the top of it. Sprinkled by Puck's magic golden dust, the ass Bottom's very own "Midsummer Night's Dream" began.

In his "Dream", the actor troupe rehearsing its play was hilarious, both physically and verbally. The four lovers - Hermia, Lysander, Helena, and Demetrius - danced their hide-and-seek farce of misappropriated love delightfully.

For her litheness and elegance, Titania stood out as the queen of the fairies. With wiry arms, long legs and beautiful feet, her pirouettes in attitude derriere (turns with one leg bent at an angle of 90 degrees lifted behind) were absolutely ravishing.

Her comical pas de deux with Bottom was cute and the audience couldn't help smiling and laughing at the strange harmony conjured up by the dance between a tall, graceful ballerina and a short, stocky, donkey man who could only do mocking ballet steps.

Oberon, the fairy king, also had very good technique. However, his character didn't make a big enough impact and it took a while to register that he was actually Oberon, the ruler of all fairies.

Part of that, though, may have been because the conflict between Oberon and Titania was missing from the performance. Unlike the play or the original version of the ballet by George Balanchine, where they fight over a pageboy, Spoerli's Oberon seemed to make his queen fall madly in love with the ass-headed-and-tailed Bottom for no reason.

Instead, Oberon's servant, Puck, appeared to dominate his master. Rather than the stereotypical cheeky-looking sprite, he had a mystical air endowed with strong personality. His technical prowess was superb: multiple pirouettes were conquered effortlessly, big jumps in splits like sissonnes and jetes were performed with great ballon (ability to hold himself in the air) and sharpness, and his arabesque penchees (leaning forward with one leg lifted high at the back) en demi pointe moving smoothly into a somersault were truly astonishing.

Finally, all the lovers were reunited, and Bottom woke up from his dream world. "Pyramus and Thisbe" was performed again to more guffaws from the audience, thanks in part to Nopamat Veohong's Thai translation texts projected on the side screens.

The ballet looked as if it was drawing to a close just as Mendelssohn's original score noticeably, yet flowingly, became Philip Glass's "Violin Concerto".

"Now," this reviewer thought, "finally, this must be the 'actual performance' the company was rehearsing right at the beginning, before being interrupted by the broom-wielding stage crew."

This last 28 minutes of the performance turned out to be the most intriguing. Spoerli had finished "telling" us the narrative of the story and now it was time to find out what more he had to offer.

From the moment the whole ensemble - in white unitards - poured onto the stage and started dancing simultaneously, there were goose pimples all round in the audience. Everything - the dance steps, the music (led by violin soloist Marina Kuzina), the screen and even the smoke behind it - fitted together impeccably.

Many in the audience probably felt they'd left "Bottom's Dream" and entered one of their own.

Still, most also noticed - and were probably curious - that Puck was the only one who hadn't changed into white…

But the picture became whole when Nick Bottom woke up "again", looking puzzled as he wandered off stage left with the scroll of the play script given to him in his very first scene still in his hand.

All the action - from the point he first fell asleep to this final moment of the performance - was his dream, and purely Puck's doing. Bottom was having a dream about himself "dreaming the Midsummer Night's Dream". The play had not "really" been performed and the entire performance with Glass's music was also part of his dream.

Sounds confusing, but it is beautifully simple.

The audience had been watching a marvellous performance that,   after all, had not even been "performed".

The Zurich Ballet performs "Cello Suites: Wind in the Void" tomorrow and Friday at the Esplanade Theatre, Singapore.

A professional dancer, Jasmine Baker will participate in a contemporary dance master class by the Batcheva Dance Company at the Esplanade later this month.

 Jasmine Baker

 Special to The Nation