Dance
Auto thrills
Giannandrea Poesio
Goodbye male swans, hello greased beefcakes! Once again, Matthew Bourne is the toast of the dance world, and deserved- ly so. This time he has turned Carmen, the quintessential seductress, into a hunky drifter who, not unlike the eponymous heroine of Bizet's opera, causes havoc wherever he goes. A woman, the wife of a cantankerous and ailing garage owner, is not enough for drifting Luca who then seduces Angelo, a shy young guy with a messed-up sexuality, and drags him into a vortex of lust and murder. Aptly subtitled an 'auto-erotic thriller', where the suffix auto is yet another reference to the garage- related activities hinted at in the title, The Car Man comes to the rescue of those who had lost faith in the British dance scene and dubbed it 'the kingdom of boredom'.
Surprisingly new and, at the same time, perfectly in line with Bourne's most distinc- tive artistic canons, The Car Man is a superbly balanced, eye-grabbing combina- tion of first-rate choreography, effectively constructed drama and sheer entertain- ment. Not unlike other acclaimed examples of Bourne's uniquely fertile creativity, such as The Nutcracker, Highland Fling and Swan Lake, this work too draws upon a typically Bourne amalgam of inventively theatrical, musical and choreographic twists. Brief yet revealing moments of psychological intro- spection are thus masterfully interwoven with pleasantly irreverent solutions and a good deal of tongue-in-cheek references to opera, drama, dance and movie classics (do you remember the hand on the steamed up `He's very much an "in-yer-face" act.' windscreen at the back of the car in Titanic?).
Apart from the obvious references to both Bizet's Carmen and the film The Post- man Always Rings Twice — or its Italian neo-realist equivalent, Ossessione — there are numerous quotations. Yet the web of citations which underscores the work and sends up superbly the early American Modern Dance choreography (in the form of a cabaret's apache dance) does not con- stitute the actual core of the work. So no pre-performance study is necessary to appreciate it.
Similarly, the relationship between the music, Terry Davies's excellent adaptation of Rodion Shchedrin's Carmen suite, and the action has an immediacy and a legibili- ty that transcend the need for any deep knowledge of Bizet's opera, on which Shchedrin's score is based. There is little doubt, however, that those who are familiar with the operatic score will have the chance to enjoy the provocatively witty way with which some famous tunes have been used to underline specific moments.
Another outstanding component of this new work is its choreography. The trained eye can easily spot some of Bourne's most identifiable signature features; but the movement vocabulary in The Car Man stands out for being structurally and stylis- tically different from the choreographic formulae that characterise works such as Swan Lake — the dance work with which Bourne is mostly associated — or any of his earlier creations. Intense lyricism and breathtaking fast-paced moments go hand in hand, constantly enhancing the build-up of the drama. The movements are highly expressive without been too literal, and convey clearly the vast range of each char- acter's feelings and emotions. There is blood, there is violence and there is sex a lot of sex in all its forms. And yet the inventive movement vocabulary together with the choreographic layout prevent the action from slipping into cheap sensation- alism or gratuitous bad taste. Indeed, Bourne's talent as both a choreographer and theatre director plays a significant role in keeping up the standards of perfor- mance.
The other striking feature of The Car Man is its narrative. Without indulging in any sort of mind-taxing construction, Bourne manages to unfold the drama of the love triangle with an ease that is admirable. By using a clever episodic game of narrative chiaroscuro, and by alternating pure dance images with more theatre- based, or theatre-dance-based ones, the creator of The Car Man has achieved a nar- rative tension that remains constant throughout the work and reaches its apex in a perfectly orchestrated finale. The com- pany, on the opening night, danced with incredible stamina and gusto, and I have no doubt that the different casts will be as suc- cessful as the one I saw led by Saranne Curtis, Will Kemp and Alan Vincent.
Previous page
