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Jayne Regan
NBT Principal by Bruce Marriott | |||||||
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Jayne Regan is terrific. Another opening night Juliet just behind her, a TV interview completed (they were late of course) and immediately before that the rigours of class but in front of a gawking audience apparently comprising most of
For those in the know, Jayne is one of the foremost dance actresses in the country - if not the foremost: 'for those in the know' because she dances with Northern Ballet Theatre (NBT), a company often dismissed by the grand, mainly of London, brought up to believe ballet can only really be done the one (Royal) way and NBT's theatricality is all a bit of a vulgar pastiche for the provincial masses who really don't know any better. As you might have guessed it's a blinkered view that drives me (for one) up the wall. Jayne is aware of the view and sure of NBT's strengths. "People have problems with the straight lines and mime of traditional ballet. I mean the classical mime in Fille mal gardee for 'I've got that many children' could mean absolutely anything. It could mean I'm building some steps that lead up to my patio! It could mean absolutely anything at all. But at least there is a choice and there is a great tradition of that (classical stuff) when it is done well. But there is a place for everything. It would be terrible if there was only one kind of ballet or one kind of contemporary or jazz dance..."
Jayne is equally aware of her own strengths and weaknesses - she is not the type to talk of having "development needs". But this awareness has not always been there and she would have it that luck has played its part more than a few times in her rise to the top. She first realised that ballet night be a vocation when she started winning little medals and cups and won a Cecchetti Society Scholarship for special classes on a Saturday morning. "But I'm not competitive - I just started and things happened! And then I got a scholarship to the Royal Ballet School (RBS) but I was not really terribly happy there". Jayne recalls some great teachers at the RBS - with expansive minds who were keen to bring the students' personalities out in dance. But overall "I was not the creme-de-la-creme - said in best Prime of Miss Jean Brodie Scots - and so they had no interest. Or perhaps that was my perception." But Jayne must have had more than a little something because she quickly got a job, not even having heard of the Northern company. By her own admission she was absolutely clueless, but she learned stagecraft quickly in the touring company environment. She had fun and got paid but at that time had no particular feeling of why she was doing what she was doing and indeed was about to give up dancing when Christopher Gable took ever. As the cliche goes - the rest is history. Suddenly the penny dropped, "That's why I am doing this, and it's important to be doing this..." and she raced through to become a principal in only 4 years. But she is keen to dismiss any feeling that she has not paid her dues in the lower ranks; "I've done all the crap! We've done all the traditional Giselles and Swan Lake's and I've stood in those straight lines for hours on end, you know when the sweat's going like that and your eyes start squinting. And you then creep around in your shoes to get rid of the cramp! I've done all that stuff."
NBT is a friendly company but it is still tough at the top and there is no getting away from it. "It's hard work, and it is a bit lonely, and it's tiring, and sometimes I get fed up with the pressure because I can see other people and I think I can only dream of doing things like that. So you do have to really try and remain very focussed on your good points." Jayne is refreshingly straightforward about her good points; "My ability is being able to reach the audience in a personal way. And Christopher helped me hone that into not just a bit of a gift but into a skill. If you want to do it every night there is a technique for doing that. There is a definite technique - it doesn't just happen by magic."
Another example. There is a great temptation to think that roles have to be added to and played increasingly powerfully as you get used to them. In fact Jayne often does less; "Sometimes you have to take it back to basics again and don't try and do the story, and don't try and do Juliet, just try and do Jayne". Juliet of course is a notoriously demanding role; "Sometimes it can leave you teary at the end of the show and you can't work out why - premenstrual even!". And then the bit you perhaps don't want to hear pops out, "And other days its just a job. There are days when it doesn't actually touch you personally. It does happen - you can't always press the right buttons for yourself as well as the audience". The thing about Jayne is that 99.9% of the audience will have seen a fabulous performance regardless of her own state of mind and that's an art just as great and marvellous as any other.
Recently Jayne took time out to be the Assistant Artistic Director of Ballet Central - a school with strong links to NBT. The reality of being Assistant AD seems primarily to involve driving a 17 seater mini-bus the length and breadth of the country devising, rehearsing and putting on shows with the final year students. "It wore me out" she says candidly. She very much enjoys coaching and teaching and the idea of putting something back into the company, and dance in general, certainly appeals. She also likes the idea of straight acting and also writes and sings; "I sing better then I dance, and sometimes do some session singing in London". Good grief is there no end to such talent!? The writing is fiction and cookery. Of course we immediately demand recipes and she agrees - obviously she can see that Ballet.co's finest is in need of feeding-up!. Goodness knows what she will do when she finally finishes dancing in the front line; certainly she is not short of options. Jayne has a great sense of humour and we end by asking about on-stage mishaps. Many seem to involve Jeremy Kerridge, a close friend and also a senior principal in the company. Pulling her wig off in Cinderella did not go down well but it was a cock-up in Simple Man that really had her creased in laughter as she recalled it. Jeremy was Lowery and Jayne was Ann, a figment of his imagination. As she puts it, they were in a bit of an erotic pas de deux when she snuggles up to him and rests her head on his tummy. Unfortunately her hair and his 3 piece suit then became irredeemably entangled and though he manfully tried to carry on and touch her breasts (as required by the choreography) they had to rapidly give up the struggle and slowly reverse off the stage still joined head to tummy and in mad fits of giggles.....
Lowery, I'm sure would have loved it - if only in a dream!
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Jayne as Giselle (Denis Malinkine as Albrecht)