Dance and Theater -- June 1997

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Arts & Entertainment Preview -- June 1997

B Y A U S T I N B A E R & N A N C Y D A L V A

The Puckish Delight of Fairies and Sprites

Thirty-five years ago George Balanchine was on a romantic roll. Just two years before, he had choreographed his sublime, melting Liebesleider Walzer. Now, using the same perfect design team (unsurpassed for candle-lit, moonlit, nacreous effects) of David Hays (decor) and Karinska (costumes), the great Mr. B. made Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream into a two-act story ballet, notable for any number of marvelous elements.

The spirit of the play in dance

Among them: the Mendelssohn score (pieced together by Balanchine from a variety of works), which conjures up exactly the fireflies and fairies Balanchine makes material; the swiftly paced narrative, which tells the entire tale without a scintilla of old-fashioned mime -- every effect is danced, and with nary a moment of longueur; the original cast, which included Arthur Mitchell as Puck, and also Jillana, Edward Villella, Francisco Moncion, Patricia McBride, Bill Carter, Violette Verdy, and Conrad Ludlow (some playing the fairies and some the mortals, but each immortal in the dance world); and, perhaps most important and telling, a deep feeling for the language of the original, here alchemically transformed into the poetics of ballet. As a child Balanchine not only saw the play but appeared in it, as an elf in a production at the Mikhailovsky Theatre, in St. Petersburg, when he was eight. Many of its lines stayed with him, and as an adult he could recite (in Russian) many of the speeches. (He seemed particularly to like Oberon's "I know a bank where the wild thyme blows, Where oxlips and the nodding violet grows....") He said of his work, "I think it is possible to see and enjoy the ballet without knowing the play. At least that was my hope in creating the piece." So, also, is it possible to see and enjoy the ballet while already loving the play. The New York City Ballet offers Midsummer at Lincoln Center the week of June 24-29, bringing Shakespeare's green world to the big concrete city; then, wonderfully, the green world will remove to the countryside, to Saratoga, New York, where one can revel in its magic on July 15, 17 (matinee and evening), and 18. (Tickets for Lincoln Center, 212-870-5570; for Saratoga, 518-587-3330.) Casting will be announced one week in advance and posted on the company Web site: www.nycballet.com. --N.D.

Method Barking

Watching The Two Gentlemen of Verona is like riffling through early drafts of Shakespeare's later and better comedies, from mellow masterpieces (Twelfth Night, As You Like It)

The Globe's production of Two Gents

and harsh "problem plays" (All's Well That Ends Well, Measure for Measure) to valedictory romances (Cymbeline, Pericles). One scene, though, bears the paw print of genius: the diatribe of the servingman Launce against his dog, Crab, who sees his master hounded by misfortune yet sheds not a single compassionate tear. The monologue is a comic jewel but a tricky one for the actor. Last winter, when the new Anglo-American ensemble Shakespeare's Globe, London, paid its first visit to New York, the mutt walked away with the reviews.

Whether he sat and scratched himself or cocked an ear or wandered off to make a friend in the first row, it all had the glow of fresh inspiration. Wily thespians beware beasts (and children), whose naïveté will blow away hardworking professionalism every time. The point will surely be borne out this summer when Two Gentlemen shows up in a new production at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival. Crab will again seem an Olivier among canines, whereas in truth the genius is the playwright, whose lines miraculously anticipate and accommodate animal behavior of any kind (June 12-October 11; 541-482-4331). --A.B.

The Girl Who Cried "Woof"

The title character of A. R. Gurney's Sylvia, originally portrayed by Sarah Jessica Parker, in all her leggy, kooky beauty, wanders off the street into the apparently stable marriage of two Manhattan professionals and resets the course of their lives.

Parker as man's best friend

A ménage à trois? Yes, but the homewrecker is a dog, endowed with the unconditional love, territorial animosity, and undomesticated biological needs of her species. Luckily for actress and audience, she dresses like a human being and speaks English, though inevitably communications entail a good deal of mutual misunderstanding. Those spectators who harbor pets no doubt draw different conclusions from those who don't, but both persuasions seem to recognize Gurney's generous comic vision as poetically true to life. After making the rounds of numerous regional stages, Sylvia now moves in at the Unicorn Theatre, the company that brings up-to-date titles to Kansas City (June 4-19; 816-531-7529). --A.B.

Austin Baer is a writer based in New York.
Nancy Dalva is working on a series of essays on Merce Cunningham.

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