Northern Ballet - The Great Gatsby, Spring 2013

[Jan McNulty]

I've seen a couple of people in flapper gear but most people just seem to go in their ordinary theatre-going clothes! 

 

Speaking of finding yourself in a paper - when I was on a break in North Yorkshire recently, I found myself in the society pages of the April edition of Yorkshire Life!!!  A totally bizarre feeling! (At an NB event of course!)

[Spax]

Well, I was really impressed and had a little tear or two. Walked home and was re running it through my head and before I knew it I was home. Must if been good! Might go and watch again.

[Cinquieme]

Just back from the matinee at SWT. Very impressed by the company as a whole - it had been quite a while since I last saw them. I thought the men of the company looked fantastic in particular. Jessica Morgan was great as Myrtle, but I would have loved to have seen the other cast, Vicky Sibson (who still had a whale of a time in the corps). What I most admire in this company is the way Nixon uses the technique as a way of allowing his dancers to dance and tell a story, rather than the technique being an end in itself. Very refreshing, especially with so much thrashing around being called ballet these days.

[aileen]

I also saw the matinee today. I really enjoyed the performance. It might be difficult to follow the story if you didn't know it well or didn't read the synopsis in the programme. The sets and lighting were extremely effective. I liked the music and the choreography which included a couple of "pdds" for the men, some heartstopping throws and a very sexy duet for Myrtle and Tom as well as a dance with a tyre! Everyone danced well and I was particularly impressed with young Isaac Lee-Baker who played Myrtle's husband and who only joined the company last year. He got huge applause at the end, deservedly. The acting was very good. Special mention should go to Hironao Takahashi who managed to make Nick Carraway interesting, no mean feat when he is very much an observer (and, I think, the narrator in the original story). My only slight quibble would be that the narrative could have benefitted from being slightly streamlined; in particular, there could have been fewer flashbacks.

[Frogsmum]

I saw last nights evening performance at Sadlers Wells and it was just fabulous! I had no idea how the book would translate to a ballet, but it really was cleverly done. I thought John Hull was brilliant in his portrayal as the brutal, angry Tom, and his scenes with Jessica Morgan, as Myrtle were breathtaking. I also thought the lighting was excellent, and you could almost feel the oppressive heat in the hotel room scene, just by the effects. I am hoping this will now become part of Northern Ballet's repertoire, and I only wish I'd got more tickets earlier in the spring to see other perfomances.

[aileen]

I saw a different cast today. The sets and lighting looked even better from the first circle. I was so impressed with everything. All the men danced really well. There were lots of beautiful arabesques. I think that the RB and ENB have missed a trick by not taking on Isaac Lee-Baker and Kevin Poeung from their respective schools. Still, I don't suppose that either of them mind as they were both dancing large roles in this. I honestly don't know why everyone raves about Ratmansky. I find his choreography dull. The choreography in this was so inventive; it was varied with lots of nice litte touches. I'm so pleased that the SW run sold out, and I hope that NB make a DVD of this.

[Mayerling79]

I saw the saturday 18.05 matinee performance with Juliet Charlet as Daisy, Victoria Sibson as Myrtle, Contadini as Gatsby and the great Benjamin Mitchell as George Wilson.

 

Although the choreography is very smartly arranged (the hinting toward Gatsby's corrupted wealth, the use of young Daisy and young Gatsby, the mirror effects, the PDDs between Gatsby/young Gatsby, the dream vs reality illusion), I thought that the ballet suffered a little from following too closely the narrative of the book and of the 1974 film with Redford. It felt a little too close to the scenes we already know, only of course danced (beautifully). The frequent decor changes needed for the storyline were also - to me anyway - a little mind- disturbing and taking me away from the emotion.

 

Gatsby failed to MOVE me, although you can get this lone presence and his longing for Daisy. The PDD Daisy/Gatsby at the beginning of Act II is beautiful though, but the emotions seem to be carried mostly by Bennett's score.

Rehearsal link below...

 

Emotion however got through me in all the George/Benjamin Mitchell scenes (great scene with the tyre in Act I and amazing duet in the bedroom in Act II). Myrtle's dancing in the NYC flat and in the bedroom also conveyed the dramatic aspects of her character very well.

Daisy's persona was also pretty well translated, with her cheerful insouciance and confusion.

 

The party scenes were cleverly choreographed, turning charleston moves into ballet moves. Again, the party at Tom's NYC pied-a-terre didn't fail to convey the alcohol-infused passion between Tom and Myrtle. I especially liked how the scene takes us away from the storyline for a bit, and takes the time to go deeper into the personas of Myrtle and Tom and their twisted love.

Maybe that's what I was missing in Gatsby himself: the weight of the character, the moving omnipresence of his loneliness and the heartbreaking incapacity to let go of his love for Daisy.

[Ian Macmillan]

The NB Gatsby tour came to an end at Sadler's Wells last night before a full and appreciative house.  It's a very slickly staged show, with the changes between the many short episodes meticulously done against what came across as a through-composed score, though the programme makes clear that the latter is far from being the case - so hearty congratulations to Jerome Kaplan and to John Longstaff and Gavin Sutherland.  My wife, a dancer and teacher greatly more experienced than myself, thought the whole piece was terrific, and had fulsome compliments for the dancers and choreography on the drive home.  (I confess to struggling a bit with the narrative, despite the detailed scenario provided, until the end of Act 1.)  

 

I'd happily see this again as there were many good things on display - my personal choices would be the various crowd scenes in which the company's youngsters were clearly having a great time, and those involving Benjamin Mitchell as George, a huge and powerful presence.  He must surely move up from the Corps before long.  I was also much taken by the "memory" flashback scenes, so well handled.  

[Jan McNulty]

For anyone still missing NB's Great Gatsby here's another late review:

 

http://www.arbuturian.com/2013/northern-ballet-great-gatsby