BALLET
The Rambert Ballet. (King's Theatre, Hammersmith.)—Ballet Workshop. (Mercury.)—Grand Ballet du Marquis de Cuevas. (Cambridge.) THE Rambert Ballet company is celebrating its twenty-fifth birthday, and our good wishes go to its lively and courageous directress, Marie Rambert, who, despite all the obvious trials and heartbreaks of such an enterprise, repeatedly comes up smiling and seemingljr as fresh as the day she began. It is only a pity that Paltenghi's Canterbury Prologue, composed in honour of the occasion, is not a more worthy tribute. But the members of Mme Rambert's company are doing their best to atone, for they have opened their season in splendid form. It is always a pleasure to see these young artists. In contrast with a tendency all too prevalent today, they really do move their bodies in dance instead of just executing a series of steps. Alex Bennett and the beautiful Margaret Hill brought freshness and cleanliness to their roles in Giselle ; so too did Beryl Goldwyn and Cecil Bates. Fireflies was also performed with much spirit. This little ballet of Walter Gore's, with its amusing costumes and decor, reminds one afresh of the originality and musicality of its choreographer.
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In its eighth programme, Ballet Workshop includes Designed for Dancing by John Hall, and No Lips of Comfort by Michael Charnley. The former is a pleasant and amusingly conceived little ballet which suggests that its choreographer has possibilities. The latter is by far the best thing which the experimental Workshop has yet presented. Inspired by a poem of Rupert Brooke's, beauti- fully spoken by Brian Cobby, and set to music by Granados. Michael Charnley—his own designer and interpreter—has produced a master- ful vignette, tender, moving and exciting. No Lips of Comfort is simply a pas de deux ; but just as a master draughtsman is able to bring to life a whole world with a few perfectly understood strokes, so Charnley, in a finely timed and executed dance arrangement, has captured the essence of the haunting poem. There is only one criticism I would make, and that is the casting of June Leighton as the Young Girl, for she is not sufficiently ethereal in person, or experienced enough as an artist, for the role.
* * * * In the Marquis de Cuevas' company, George Skibine has had much the same idea as Michael Charley. Annabel Lee is danced to verses by Edgar Allan Poe, which are set to music and sung. But somehow or other the dancing here is merely an adjunct of the voice ; it does not hold its place as an equal partner in the ensemble. The theme of the lover stricken by the loss of his beloved is stated clearly—but how unmovingly. There are some charming passages in the pas de deux between Skibine and Marjorie Tallchief, but, these being purely visual, one has to admit that the total effect is one
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