Maile Okamura as Juliet and Noah Vinson as Romeo of Mark Morris Dance Group. Photo by Gene Schiavone.
Much of the pre-publicity surrounding Mark Morris’ new dance version of the Shakespeare tragedy has focused on the version of the Prokofiev score we are hearing for the first time. That edition, suppressed by the Soviet authorities and unearthed in Moscow by Princeton University musicologist Simon Morrison, will be, for many aficionados, reason enough to visit Berkeley’s Zellerbach Hall, where, through the weekend, Cal Performances is presenting the Brooklyn-based Mark Morris Dance Group in the West Coast premiere of the three-act project, unveiled July 4 at New York’s Bard College. Twenty minutes of music (six numbers) will be new to listeners, although, to be honest, most of it develops thematic material heard earlier in the score and will thus be familiar to concert and dancegoers.
Equally noteworthy in this production is the original 1935 scenario by the composer and dramatist Sergei Radlov, which departs from Shakespeare’s double suicide by substituting a mystical “happy” ending, one that reunites the feuding Veronese clans. That, too, was rejected by the official Soviet censors. So, Romeo and Juliet was produced, to no great effect, in Brno, Czechoslovakia, in 1938, and then, with lasting influence, by the Kirov Ballet in 1940, to durable choreography by Leonid Lavrovsky, one of the most influential (alas) dance stagings of the 20th century. The orchestration and harmonies of the score, meanwhile, were thickened and, ever since, conductors have been swept away by grandiosity to swollen, often migraine-inducing effect. Not here, where the uncommonly gifted Stefan Asbury is conducting the valiant, if sometimes overwhelmed Berkeley Symphony Orchestra in a reading that mines a rare vein of lyricism in the score (one gathers, from all reports, that the musical execution at Bard, under Leon Botstein’s baton, was a minus factor in the evening). So, there is genuine news at Zellerbach.
There can be no finer compliment to Morris than beginning a review of his dance by discussing the music, since its sound and structure have inspired so much of his choreography. Where you will mostly notice the difference in the Prokofiev is in the third act, where a full-scale divertissement unfurls in Juliet’s boudoir and in an epilogue, in which the eponymous couple swirl through a starry landscape.
There have been previous modern dance settings of R & J before the Morris version, but none have so resolutely retained the ballet’s traditional setting, while animating it with a contemporary dance vocabulary. Morris has worked with “classic” narrative material previously, in his perennially popular Hard Nut (the San Francisco Ballet’s commissioned Sylvia, of course, used the standard ballet vocabulary). Here, as in the Tchaikovsky work, Morris depends on our knowledge of the piece (is there anybody who has not seen at least one R & J staging?).
Surely, it was Morris’ plan for Romeo to emerge gradually from the tapestry of feuding families. The warring Montagues and Capulets, a community divided against itself, dominates the opening scene and Morris invests the senior Montagues (former MMDG members Guillermo Resto and Teri Weksler) and Capulets (MMDG graduates Shawn Gannon and Megan Williams) with more character and stage time than any earlier choreographer, building their characters through detail, rather than melodrama. Gannon’s delightful, if protracted, showboating in the bedroom scene seems almost a surrogate for the way Morris might dance it, if he dared.
Gestural language, much of it inspired by Italian Renaissance manuals, abounds; some of it is downright street-wise, vulgar and menacing (no, it’s not West Side Story), but much seems astutely crafted to avoid cliché; how wonderful to meet a Juliet, who, for once does not caress her growing breasts. The Prince of Verona (Joe Bowie) is not simply a referee in the feud, but a dancing participant who leads the revels in the village square, a wonderful idealization of a society at peace with itself. It is hard to resist the prince’s repeated galumphing, right angle promenades throughout the evening, a canny response to the Prokofiev score, and devastatingly funny, to boot.
Braden McDonald as Paris of Mark Morris Dance Group. Photo by Rosalie O'Connor.
Stock characters have metamorphosed before our eyes. Juliet’s nurse is no longer a horny crone but a contemporary of her mistress, a lusty, but caring enabler with a boyfriend of her own. Paris is no longer a Renaissance GQ model, but an omnipresent schemer, who can roll the dice and strum a mandolin with the best of them. Friar Laurence is no longer a retired danseur, but a youthful guy who can discourse ad nauseam on poisons and potions (Morris brilliantly sets the moment to a slithering figure in the score). Only Tybalt and Mercutio (perhaps in love with Romeo) seem conventional here, but Morris confounds us by casting them with women (the reverse of the Elizabethan theater convention). Thursday (Sept. 25), Julie Worden and Amber Darragh were well up to the task (but, why the clunky wooden swords?).
Morris’ storytelling flows smoothly, though one felt that certain episodes could be more clearly set off. The first meeting of the lovers at the Capulet ball still needs more focus, and, for some reason, the Tybalt/Mercutio duel and death scenes look a bit perfunctory. Moreover, and I think this matters a lot, you get no sense that the vengeful murder of Tybalt makes Romeo an outlaw and fugitive. Morris capitalizes on his genius at group endeavors; the unisons and circle dances often soar. Yet, there are moments when you miss ballet. Contemplating her fate, Juliet rises on demi-pointe and traverses the stage, and you just wish she would go all the way and give us a string of bourrées.
Morris gives us lovely moments of revelation. The postcoital morning scene for the lovers (both tastefully nude here) simmers with loving humanity in a way that I have seen no ballet version of R & J, attempt, let alone bring off. Yet, somehow, the duets for the pair seem a bit cool, needing more detail. Morris retains the palm-on-palm motif of the Shakespeare, but you get little sense of the evolving relationship, which should be crucial to any recounting of the tale. At first exposure, only the swirling epilogue, almost beyond physicality, really succeeds.
What you can’t dispute about Morris’ R & J is what it does for the dancers. MMDG has, for a long time, been America’s most-lovable dance company. We have come to know these people over the past two decades and, after Thursday, we know them better. Lauren Grant’s resolute nurse is a far cry from her questing kid in Hard Nut. Bradon McDonald’s Paris reeks with star quality. John Heginbotham’s Friar yielded a wry sense of humor. Samuel Black’s Peter (the Nurse’s guy) is a comic gem. But Thursday’s lovers, Noah Vinson and Maile Okamura dominated. Vinson is a gawky, Romeo endowed with youthful ardor and not a trace of narcissism. Okamura is a vulnerable, instinctive Juliet who doesn’t beg for an audience’s sympathy. She earns it the hard way. (Note that David Leventhal and Rita Donahue will assume these roles at the Saturday evening and Sunday afternoon performances).
Allen Moyer’s modest scenic design, influenced by the paintings of Giotto, is dominated by paneled wooden walls, which split apart at crucial moments, and by miniature versions of Renaissance churches and houses, which the dancers negotiate with genuine aplomb. Martin Pakledinaz’s expert costumes are wonderfully in period, and, thank heavens, there’s none of that color coding that seems to engage small choreographic minds. James F. Ingalls’ lighting is, as one expects, state of the art. All the better to see you with, my dears.
Romeo and Juliet, On Motifs of Shakespeare will be repeated Friday and Saturday at 8 p.m. and Sunday at 3 p.m. at Zellerbach Hall, Berkeley. 510.642.9988, www.calperformances.net.
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