{"id":1021,"date":"2014-11-17T13:49:28","date_gmt":"2014-11-17T13:49:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/performancemonkey\/?p=1021"},"modified":"2014-11-18T08:13:37","modified_gmt":"2014-11-18T08:13:37","slug":"scarlett-fever","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/performancemonkey\/2014\/11\/scarlett-fever.html","title":{"rendered":"Scarlett fever"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"A<\/a><\/p>\n

Liam Scarlett\u2019s The Age of Anxiety at the Royal Ballet<\/strong><\/p>\n

Three guys and a gal walk into a bar. It\u2019s a set up for a gag, a murder, or perhaps an Edward Hopper<\/a> painting. And now a ballet \u2013 Liam Scarlett\u2019s The Age of Anxiety<\/em><\/a>, newly premiered by the Royal Ballet in London. It is another absorbing, tantalising piece by a prolific yet puzzling British choreographer.<\/p>\n

The one-act ballet, centrepiece of a double bill that also included delicate work by Kim Brandstrup and Christopher Wheeldon, is another indication that Kevin O\u2019Hare\u2019s tenure as director of the Royal Ballet involves a commitment to narrative ballet \u2013 or maybe merely that Britain\u2019s leading choreographers are currently interested in storytelling. When I interviewed O\u2019Hare a while back, I glimpsed a scenario in his office for a piece based on the film Truly Madly Deeply<\/em> \u2013 \u2018you weren\u2019t supposed to see that,\u2019 O\u2019Hare said \u2013 which hasn\u2019t come to pass but suggests that the company is in the market for emotionally fraught, musically aware stories.<\/p>\n

Mucky-pup imagination<\/strong><\/p>\n

Scarlett<\/a>\u2019s dramaturgy continues to be a puzzler. Still only 28, he is much in demand \u2013 The Age of Anxiety<\/em> follows premieres this year in San Francisco, London and New York; new works for 2015 will include a full-length Midsummer Night\u2019s Dream<\/em><\/a> in New Zealand). He talks like a polite product of British ballet (still slightly in thrall to the finishing school), with a gift for striking design and heightened lyricism in his abstract work. But he also has a mucky-pup imagination, pooling in the sleazy corners of Hansel and Gretel<\/em> (slattern parents, paedo oddballs) and Sweet Violets<\/em><\/a>, his riff on Jack the Ripper. In this, he\u2019s the heir of Kenneth MacMillan, ballet\u2019s last great perve, with a similar nose for the tang of desire gone wrong.<\/p>\n

He has the moves, he has the mind, but Scarlett hasn\u2019t quite nailed a storyteller\u2019s imperative of making every detail count, giving moments clarity, complexity and a resonance that adds up into something that lingers. Christopher Wheeldon worked with playwrights Nicholas Wright and Craig Lucas\u00a0to shape his story ballets. Perhaps Scarlett might be paired with a Simon Stephens or Lucy Kirkwood: someone who might help hone the strangeness and make it resonate?<\/p>\n

\"The<\/a>

The Age of Anxiety Photo: Bill Cooper\/ROH<\/p><\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n

So who are the people we meet in The Age of Anxiety<\/em>? It is based on Auden\u2019s long poem of urban alienation, and set to Leonard Bernstein\u2019s score of the same name. The music doesn\u2019t always support the piece; it tremors on the edge of bursting out into the rorty energies and pinot noir melancholy of Broadway scores like West Side Story<\/em> or, even more apt, the shore leave avidity of Fancy Free<\/em> and On the Town<\/em>. Instead, it swerves inwards, subdues itself; less a night on the tiles than an evening\u2019s introspection.<\/p>\n

John Macfarlane\u2019s designs, starting with that bar, are gloriously Hopperesque \u2013 seedy-sad, grimy-glamorous \u2013 and Jennifer Tipton\u2019s lighting brings out their slaughterhouse reds. An omniscient bartender (Kevin Emerton) opens the piece \u2013 clicking his fingers to animate each of the denizens in turn. He uses his freezeframe fingers periodically \u2013 at one point, to pick everyone\u2019s pocket and stroll out with the cash (that\u2019s how lots of us feel about American service charges), only to saunter back later, when everyone is steaming, and snap on the lights. Who is this demi-divinity of the optics, what\u2019s his game and where does he go to? Is he the poet\/narrator, gazing dispassionately from afar? Is he a lumpy device to get the party started? It\u2019s hard to tell, and he\u2019s soon discarded.<\/p>\n

At the bar, solitary drinkers peer into their old fashioneds with disappointment and regret. Rosetta (Sarah Lamb, always classy, detailing her hands with porcelain finesse) and two gay (or gayish) men: Bennet Gartside\u2019s reserved Quant and Tristan Dyer\u2019s mixed-up Malin. Once Steven McRae\u2019s sailor speeds in on leave \u2013 so much party, so little time \u2013 they\u2019re all magnetised, and when the bar closes make their way to Rosetta\u2019s apartment with its swank views and cocktail shaker.<\/p>\n

Everyone wants a sailor<\/strong><\/p>\n

Everyone wants to fuck a sailor \u2013 at least, they do McRae\u2019s sailor, who leads with his pelvis, springing with lewd showman\u2019s sass. No dancer delineates a move with such glinting precision; to his laser-cut spins and slides, McRae adds arse-waggling sauce and a habit of letting his hand slide from a shoulder to grab a handful of bum cheek. He\u2019s a dirty promise that galvanises the barflies, but it\u2019s a promise that doesn\u2019t deliver \u2013 liquor beds him before any of his companions manage it.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n

\"Tristan<\/a>

Tristan Dyer in The Age of Anxiety Photo: Bill Cooper\/ROH<\/p><\/div>\n

\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n

Rosetta is disappointed, though too much of a lady to show it, leaving him tucked up on the couch. Mailn is distraught, though Quant gives him his card and a kiss before strolling off into the dawn. And we\u2019re left, belatedly, with Malin\u2019s coming out epiphany. Dyer<\/a> is great, but has had the least interesting choreographic material (though he adds electrical charge to every glance, watching McRae, yearning and resentful). The sailor-boy\u2019s dazzle; the businessman\u2019s lonely-town solos with wraparound arms; recurring sequences when the quartet appear from behind, heading rakishly upstage towards some fresh hangover hell \u2013 these are the best bits. After a night where he\u2019s snogged and soused, been rejected and rejected in turn,\u00a0Malin heads into a glorious papercut Manhattan, his shining island of promise. He\u2019ll take Manhattan. Scarlett will too, no doubt.<\/p>\n

Photo (top) by Tristram Kenton\/Guardian<\/em><\/p>\n

Follow David on Twitter: @mrdavidjays<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Liam Scarlett\u2019s The Age of Anxiety at the Royal Ballet Three guys and a gal walk into a bar. It\u2019s a set up for a gag, a murder, or perhaps an Edward Hopper painting. And now a ballet \u2013 Liam Scarlett\u2019s The Age of Anxiety, newly premiered by the Royal Ballet in London. It is […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":1022,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[30,53,131],"class_list":{"0":"post-1021","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-uncategorized","8":"tag-ballet","9":"tag-liam-scarlett","10":"tag-royal-ballet","11":"entry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/performancemonkey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1021","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/performancemonkey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/performancemonkey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/performancemonkey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/performancemonkey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1021"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/performancemonkey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1021\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1027,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/performancemonkey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1021\/revisions\/1027"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/performancemonkey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1022"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/performancemonkey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1021"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/performancemonkey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1021"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/performancemonkey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1021"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}