Dance
Shorn of drama
Giannandrea Poesio
Edward Scissorhands Sadler’s Wells Theatre
Few performance-makers possess Matthew Bourne’s ability to create a striking opening sequence. Like his Nutcracker, Highland Fling, Swan Lake and Cinderella, Edward Scissorhands kicks off in a captivating and intriguingly mood-setting way. Fans of Tim Burton’s movie might not approve of the added prologue, in which we are confronted by the death of a young boy struck by lightning while playing with scissors, by his funeral and by the despair of his father, who then becomes the creator of the scissor-handed creature. Although the extra bit of explanatory narrative detracts slightly from the mysterious aura of Burton’s story, the rapid sequence of fairly grim events sets the atmosphere for the narration perfectly; a modern fairytale this is, but a truly dark and unsettling one. I only wish the rest of the performance had been conceived in line with such an effective opening. Alas, it was not.
Despite a number of excellent ideas, some well-inserted bouts of highly entertaining theatre magic, as well as stunning sets and costumes by Lez Brotherston, Bourne’s latest creation lacks the sparkling inventiveness and subtle wit found in most of the works mentioned above. All that one gets is a series of frequently dramaturgically superfluous and not always entertaining episodes that provide, more or less appropriately, the pretext for some danced action. The gothic and vibrant undertones of Burton’s original storyline are thus totally lost in Bourne’s choreographic translation, for the much acclaimed creator of Swan Lake and Play Without Words seems to have overlooked, or decided to ignore, the intimate inner drama of the protagonists. Instead, he has preferred to concentrate on the creation of dramatically bland choral situations, populated by two-dimensional stock characters.
The story, therefore, becomes a fairly shallow and monotonously all-jiving — we are in a sort of Happy Days meets Grease era — variant of Beauty and the Beast, peppered, in a distinctive Bourne fashion, with all sorts of references to movies and choreographic works. Unfortunately, Edward Scissorhands is not an ideal context for this kind of intertextual game, given the already multilayered nature of the existing plot. Unlike the humorous references found in Bourne’s previous work, those in Edward have no impact on the narrative construction and end up being tangential and somewhat distracting. It matters little, in the end, that the cemetery where the final scene takes place is a cross between the cemetery in the ballet Giselle, the one in Phantom of the Opera, and any old scary cemetery of the Hammer Horror tradition. Similarly, it matters little that the visually imaginative but choreographically repetitive ‘topiary’ ballet at the end of the first act could be read as an adaptation of any celebrated ‘waltzy’ sequences from the classical ballet repertoire — and from Giselle’s Act I more particularly.
Lack of impact should also be put down to the fact that each dance goes on for a considerably long time, thus watering down the effect of the many, though never developed, ingenious ideas that underscore the performance. The dancing, moreover, is mostly made up of ensemble numbers, in which the intimate inner drama of the protagonists never comes fully to the fore. Such unusual — that is, for Bourne — narrative superficiality had dire repercussions for the dramatic build-up and, more significantly, for the psychological and emotional make-up of the various roles.
Despite the superb acting efforts of Sam Archer in the cast I saw, the role of Edward did not come to life at all. His feelings, his confrontation with a society which is curious about and damning towards the different and the ‘freak’ are never highlighted or dealt with choreographically. Likewise, the movie’s central character of Peg Bogg, the ‘plasticised’ American mother who adopts Edward, is turned into a fairly secondary and anonymous part, on which the well-known skills of an artist such as Etta Murfitt are totally wasted. Indeed, every member of the cast does his/her best to entertain, move and amuse, showing a wealth of stamina and bravura. It is a pity that their hard work does not manage to flesh out a fairly flimsy work. Dance diehards need not apply, even though those looking for Christmas entertainment might find it nice.
Previous page
