SKY arts...awards. Ballet and Opera

I am naturally suspicious of the Sky Arts Awards: it's something to do with TV, which I don't like (the fundamental difference between live performance and representation on a screen is that the latter fails to create a shared experience, except in virtual, anonymous terms and denies the immediacy of a critical moment). It is supported by a network that hasn't exactly shown itself to be honest and proud. The two Scottish winners have more credibility than the awards body, suggesting that the association of the artists does more for the TV network than it does for the winners - although there is a subtle interplay there. The winners get exposure, the network gets credibility and...

Enough of the doubts for the moment. It's wonderful that two of the three Scottish National Companies have won awards. A Streetcar Named Desire from Scottish Ballet got the Dance Prize: Ghost Patrol won the Opera for Scottish Opera (with Music Theatre Wales). That's the second award for Streetcar this year.

In both cases, the works are not typical of their media. Ghost Patrol was a short opera, something that SO have been working on for the past few years (their 5:15 programme was made up of new quickies). SO are slightly obsessed with getting younger audiences - they have a special price for anyone under 26 - and getting an audience in and out in an hour is a strong strategy. Meanwhile, Streetcar had both a director and a choreographer. This isn't uncommon in contemporary dance, but reflects Scottish Ballet's interest in new approaches.

On the surface, this looks like a vindication of the policies of both companies. They get in new artists - composer of Ghost Patrol MacRae is a child of the 1970s, Streetcar choreographer Annabelle Lopez Ochoa had not worked with a ballet company before - and give them access to the support a large company can give. Streetcar was especially intriguing: despite having a pas de deux, which was possibly the most brutal use of elegance seen on stage on 2012, it owed much more to contemporary approaches,and placed SB's discipline at the service of an almost dance theatre style.

It's also a vindication of the smaller companies who have supported artists before they arrive at the National Companies. The awards might seem to celebrate large names (their popular music section is, unsurprisingly, a joke, having Plan B on the list, a good five years after he was vaguely interesting), but the two Scottish companies gave a platform to voices not usually heard on this scale.

I am still suspicious of Sky Arts - the development of a modern canon is too important to be left to a media organisation that has not been a force for good in the UK's political media. But it would be ungracious not to celebrate the success of MacRae and Louise Welsh (who wrote the libretto), Eve Mutso and Tama Barry (who danced Blanche and Stanley), Nancy Meckler (who directed Streetcar) and Lopez Ochoa.

Or maybe Sky are just cuddling up to Scotland before independence?

Street Car!

After the concern surrounding Ashley Page's departure, and the disappointing reception of his full length Alice, Scottish Ballet's A Streetcar Named Desire was an encouraging step forward. Choreographer Anna Lopez Ochoa's first narrative ballet  is as celebratory and uplifting as a story based on sexual violence and insanity can get.

Apart from a few ill-judged moments - Stanley does not really need to shout "Stella" to express his frustrated emotions at the climx of the first act, and the subsequent pas de deux eroticises male brutality - Streetcar is a theatrically thrilling fusion of ballet and movement more familiar from American and Europe modern dance. 

The contrast between Blanche's fluttering, balletic steps and the earthier stomps of the New Orleans characters makes explicit the gap between her dreams of gentility and her impoverished present: the presence of a dramaturg, Nancy Mekler, seems to have ensured that every aspect of the performance, from set to props to costume to choreography, is unified to emphasise Blanche's journey from hopeful ingenue to delusional victim.

Using a relatively limited dance vocabulary, Ochoa's vision of Streetcar struggles to capture the bleak intensity of Tennessee William's original: Tamar Barry is a striking Stanley, but lacks the brutal edge of Brando's screen portrayal. And despite Ochoa's much repeated mantra that "dance lacks a past tense" - for this reason, her version does not have the final reveal of Blanche's husband's suicide, but tells the story chronologically - the flashback to Blanche's prostitute past suggests that a more allusive and abstract ballet can strike more precisely at the heart of the story's preoccupation with faded glamour and hypocrisy.

Yet Streetcar provides lavish spectacle: the pas de deux between

Stanley and Stella is a stunning technical display - perhaps diluting the savagery of their coupling for a sensuous elegance. Driven by an approachable score from Peter Salem, which is equal parts jazz and minimalist orchestration, the busy streets of New Orleans, and the more sedate atmosphere of Blanche's youthful idyll, are given robust energy. And the second act, which rushes from a montage of Blanche's attempted romance, through a recollection of her past towards the inevitable arrival of the men in white coats, races the narrative along without losing coherence or the thematic integrity.

With Sophie Martin (Stella) and Eve Mutsuo (Blanche) putting their technique at the service of characterisation, and Ochoa using ballet as a foundation for spectacle and emotive choreography, Scottish Ballet escape the trap of relying too heavily on the source script, and insist that narrative dance need not be plot heavy and predictable.




Scottish Ballet presents 

A Streetcar Named Desire

Festival Theatre, Edinburgh

Wed 18 – Sat 21 Mar 2015

Evenings 18-21 Mar - 7.30pm
Matinee 21 Mar – 2pm

Box office 0131 529 6000 (bkg fee)
Free pre-show talks at 6.30pm on Thu 19 Mar with Artistic Staff and Fri 20 Mar with Music staff. Call box office to reserve tickets.
Free post-show discussion immediately following the performance on Fri 20 Mar.


Sadler's Wells, London
Tue 31 Mar – Thu 2 Apr 2015 - 7.30pm

Free pre-show talk at 6.30pm on Thu 26 April. Call box office to reserve tickets.

Tickets from £12-£40. Discounts available - please contact box office.
Box office 0844 412 4300 (bkg fee)






USA


Harris Theater, Chicago

Thu 7 – Sat 9 May 2015 – 7.30pm

Tobin Center, San Antonio

Tue 12 May 2015 – 7.30pm

Brown Theater, Houston

Fri 15 May 2015 – 7.30pm

Byham Theater, Pittsburgh
Tue 19 May 2015 – 7.30pm

Spoleto Festival
College of Charleston Sottile Theatre, Charleston
Fri 22 - Sun 24 May 2015

Kennedy Center, Washington DC
Thu 28 – Sat 30 May 2015
Evenings 28-30 May – 7.30pm
Matinee 30 May – 1.30pm