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For many, seeing Jayne Regan dance made for a very special night. In a company (NBT) that accentuated the dramatic Jayne would always, but always, startle you with the vividness of her portrayals.
Well there is more to Jayne than 'just' being a ballet dancer as I started to find when I (BM) interviewed her a couple of seasons ago: she is also a cook, mother (to Max) and a thinker and writer... which is what this is all about.
Jayne started writing this last summer - before Max even - and it's chockablock full of thoughts, anecdotes and lively reading. So read on...
Link to second column
Update till the 1st July 2000
Well now is definitely the time to take advantage of the last remaining days of comparative leisure. Our baby is due in six days and counting... so this is my opportunity to put a few thoughts down before my already rusty brain is taken over by a brand new 'Pink'! Needless to say that my mind will restore itself to it's legendary razor sharp wit in no time at all, as life settles back down after the imminent arrival.!
Fortunately I've been busy throughout this pregnancy so these last few weeks have really been a time of indulgence particularly, as I love to paint and potter (potter in the sense of experimenting with various materials and usually ruining a perfectly pleasing object by spraying or sticking something to it). If it stands still long enough I'll tamper with it, taking no prisoners.
For the first months I was down in London doing a stint for Gillian Lynne on her production of Dick Whittington. Our hero was naturally accompanied by his mischievous cohort 'Cat' cunningly disguised as Ewan Wardrop who you'll know from his great work at AMP, among other places. Every good cat has a 'lady cat' in tow and I happily filled that role from November till the end of January (2000) down at Sadler's Wells. I do think that my fellow cast members wouldn't have needed the observations of a super sleuth to notice the ever changing dimensions of my rather unforgiving pussy-cat uni-tard, however I seemed to get to the four month mark without having to burden the theatre management and my valiant partner with the news that our pas de deux was in fact a pas de trois.
It made for a fantastic and refreshing change to work with actors as well as dancers and singers, after almost fourteen years of touring in a ballet company and to be based in one place for longer than a week was a complete luxury.
Touring
The normal routine of a touring 'turn' would be travel on a Monday afternoon to arrive at your 'digs' unless you hate the venue so much that you put off the inevitable and leave your unlived in homes in a dawn raid, early Tuesday morning... recommended mode of transport a milk float!
The word digs may conjure up rather romantic images of an eccentric but welcoming lady of a certain age opening the door of her terraced house only yards away from the stage-door and smoke filled jazz cafes. Ideally the walls of your cosy but impractical room are lined with theatrical memorabilia and photographs of when Margot and Rudolph also trod the boards in Southsea. After effortlessly carrying your bags up the seven flights of stairs you'll be offered a pot of tea or maybe something a little stronger in her parlour before you head off to enjoy the sights and sounds of yet another town or city.
The reality is somewhat different, although we live in hope the 'Theatrical Land-Lady' as we imagine her did exist, I make her sound like a relic from some Neolithic age but certainly only fifteen years ago there was such a breed in my experience of provincial touring. More latterly I've found that the York Cardiff run, for example, would begin on a Monday afternoon whereupon I say to Michael "Would you like me to drive darling"? It's only a formality now as I seem to have been in a controlled and suspended hibernation for most of my years (no I'm not saying how many) so after a bit of a play on the radio I would invariably drift off only to wake up to have a heated discussion about the right exit to get off the M4 to actually infiltrate the city of Cardiff.
After locating our 'British Holiday Home of excellence', 28 miles outside of the centre of town, finding the keys that have been secreted with KGB cunning we discover on the apartment information that we need £40 pounds worth of 50 pence pieces for the meter to get us as far as a hot bath. There are five single beds in the master bedroom and the nearest local country pub that we had planned to bond with the local types in is in fact the only place with a fully functional loo for at least six miles. To top this I have only packed one set of underwear but eight pairs of shoes AND it was me that booked the digs in the first place. Now I really am flavour of the month, not only with my husband but the colleagues and chums that I promised an idyllic week in rural paradise too.
The performances are the only thing in our lives that you can guarantee will offer any stability. This may sound ironic as there is nothing ever the same twice in a live show, but we do all know that the 'half hour call' will come seven times a week and there's no going back. I should make some kind of nod in the direction of those unsung heroes and patrons of the arts that already were or have become great friends. They tirelessly bid us welcome into their homes and have made the national tour not only bearable but often positively luxurious. I wouldn't even attempt to expound on the joys and confusions of a foreign tour except to say that many a happy union has blossomed in a company hotel.
The whole idea that a group of people can actually sustain any cordiality or a reasonable working relationship over at least 25 weeks in such close proximity on the road is baffling. Still we endeavour and there is always a story to tell, often hysterical, and always with a touch of unlicensed exaggeration; what else would you expect from us arty types? The merry band that I toured with was a mid-scale touring company of 34 dancers, but when the whole jig-saw is put together the number is dramatically increased by the people who 'make it happen': wardrobe, stage management, technical staff, admin, marketing and sponsorship, and of course the noble orchestra. The band being the rarest of breeds and identifiable by numerous strange habits in their behaviour and dress, never without a newspaper a filthy joke and a light ale... basically the perfect mate for any ballet dancer! We all try very hard to maintain some kind of social life and outside interest but the efforts are generally thwarted by the sheer lack of time, crazy travelling schedules and a blinkered kind of inertia that sets in after week five on the road.
On the road could also have connotations of heady rock star schedules and wild nights abusing hotel property. I think perhaps the headiest we may have got was in Belfast at the very lovely Europe Hotel, now way out of our tour allowance budget since it's refurbishment and visit from Mr Clinton several years ago. I remember finding a well respected member of our wardrobe department in the main hotel elevator, tied up and covered in Guinness travelling between the ground floor and piano bar levels. It is a real wonder that we all managed the hard week that we did, thanks to our incredibly hospitable sponsors and a punishing week of Romeo and Juliet. I'm sure that I'm not the first girl to have done five performances of Juliet in five days, indeed when my husband Michael was swinging his very long legs for Festival Ballet, Patti Ruanne and Rudolph were performing the principal roles EIGHT times a week at the London Coliseum. I think the difference might be that my Romeo and many of the cast thought we were indefatigable 24 year olds that really could cut the mustard in the post show hotel Olympics. By the time we all hit 27 any foolhardy or ambitious antics were carried out strictly in the privacy of our modest digs, usually before midnight and invariably with a Marks and Spencers dinner. I should also point out that I had found love by this stage and wouldn't dream of being included with those foolish and unprofessional revellers!, preferring instead to find a little restaurant.
Food is something that I'm passionate about... I'm certainly not a galloping gourmet but I do love cooking and all the things that go with it like the books and delicatessens and collecting friends recipes or just being a plain sticky beak and asking in restaurants exactly what did go into my aioli.
As a consequence of this passion I could prove to be a pain in the neck to share digs with. An example of this might be a time when I shared a cottage in Yorkshire with two great friends in the company and as my treat to them for their precious Sunday off was going to be the re-creation of a provencal lazy day complete with hammock in the garden, rugged country wines, some tapenade and finally the piece de resistance, Cassoulet! For the purists amongst you I acknowledge that the ubiquitous cassoulet is actually the most important export of Toulouse, however all my holidays up until that point had been spent on a hill top deep within the Luberon (a whole other story) where we thrilled at the luxury of having our palates educated by a wonderful chef called Jean-Phillipe who first introduced me to this feast.
Months and a world away later I'm immersed in a market, between shows, on a Saturday asking for the kind offal and pigs innards that could get health and safety people hammering at our door. So Oppedette meets Sowerby, West Yorkshire. Sunday saw me rising early - that's 11am in ballet dancer language - and arranging my knees to make that first painful trip down the stairs a little more bearable, only to walk into the luggage that we'd all dumped in the hall after arriving home from Plymouth in the very small hours of the same morning. You see I was going for authenticity and if Jean-Phillipe and the Escoffier brothers could do it why couldn't a ballet dancer? Well quite.
Post birth, Romeo and Juliet, Popularism
Soon after, in fact nine weeks after the birth of our gorgeous Max, he and I travelled to Atlanta to join my husband Michael (Pink) who was in the midst of making a new Romeo and Juliet for the same company that had such a great success with Dracula and Hunchback of Notre Dame.
It was a interesting and reflective experience for me especially after all the changes of the last two years. I couldn't count how many performances of Juliet that I've danced, I know it's in the hundreds and under nearly every circumstance imaginable... in the Turkish rain sticks out particularly. It all seems strangely a world away now that we have Max and more recently that I've been looking at several productions from the other side of the fence, when I assist on them.
This 'Romeo' for Atlanta has existing costumes by Judanna Lynn, who's designs for Houston ballet's Cleopatra can be seen at Sadler's Wells very soon. The first thing that strikes one is that this is a very physical production with many layers that reveal as the story unfolds. With all the productions of this that I've seen, the first task is usually to introduce the characters and give a clear sense of the nature of each one. For example there is often some confusion about the relationship between Tybalt and the rest of the Capulet family and unless established early on in the action, one could be left very perplexed by the degree of Lady Capulet's suffering at the end of Act 2. Michael ventured to ask the question was Tybalt the son that she never had? Food for thought. Indeed the text gives us hints at their relationship was on more than one level. The bottom line is the Shakespeare text. It's all there and gives us all the information we need. The interesting part of creating a show are the choices that a director and choreographer make, as to what to include, to leave out or to highlight by way of telling this story best, only without words.
Quite often I've seen reviews that have said that a choreographer has paid a debt to MacMillan, for example. While this is no bad thing, can you imagine how difficult this must be for the dance maker every time that he or she approaches a big dramatic pas de deux; the stuff that Macmillan is best known for. The situation, characters and music dictate the movement and generally these stories do have very similar themes, so we must rule out plagiarism unless there are direct 'lifts' from other productions. By the same token there are only so many ways to say something on stage just as there are only so many ways to do an arabesque... It's how you do it that counts.
Atlanta Ballet have been championing the narrative ballet genre in the States now for several years, having taken the first leap with Dracula and subsequently two more productions. It would seem a brave move considering that most American companies have a strong tradition of doing the perennial 'War Horses' and buckets of Mr Balanchine. We're assured that there is a real shift taking place, backed up by several other US companies, looking now to pick up on these narrative works for their own repertoire; Boston Ballet being one of them with 'Hunchback' this spring (2001) and Denver in the fall.
So perhaps they're in the middle of a renaissance of the story ballet. Possibly a pioneer of narrative dance in America was Antony Tudor, who left England just before the 2nd World War for New York: what a shame there wasn't enough room for more than one great English choreographer at that time. Although his work is being revived now at the Opera House, just think how much richer our dance heritage would be now, if there had been a little more 'room'. It seems now that the UK is buying in pure classical dance, much of it from the States, except perhaps David Bintley at Birmingham, who has managed to hold onto a strong company identity, which includes a varied repertoire from his own stable and abroad.
America; the land of opportunity... well there is definitely a 'let's do it ' mentality, I'm sure very much to do with the fact that a formal dance and theatre tradition is a relatively new one compared to ours, and they want to make up for lost time.
What they do not seem afraid to do is offer an audience and the public a chance to decide and chose for themselves... after all who really are the arbiters of good taste? People will come to the theatre, but not if they're lead by a preconception or something that they happened to read in a review. Not so in the States, although I'm told that New York is a whole other ball game and certainly a critic can close a show or guarantee it's success, depending on the way they chose to review it.
Because of this youth and pioneering spirit there is, as yet no 'old boys network'. If the work is good then it gets performed. A case in point might be Dracula that Michael took to Atlanta Ballet in 1998. A very big and ambitious production for them to mount, but they were fired up by all the great production values and are not afraid of the words 'box office success'!
There must be many artists and choreographers, directors, film makers and musicians who repeatedly find themselves hitting a brick wall in England, or certainly have the feeling of being left out in the cold, all because they cannot be taken seriously artistically unless they are a part of the establishment or elite. I believe that any skilled art form that requires talent, training and the application of 'craft' is elite in itself, otherwise an entire population would lay claim to being a opera singer or a sculptor in their spare time, as well as being a librarian during the day. Maybe it is that the biggest sin in England is to be popularist?, something that the boards of several American companies have worked out is jolly good for business and dare I say, can be artistically rewarding too! There is such a thing as popularist and not so good but that's when the term 'flash in the pan' comes into being. Happily 'Dracula' escaped this label and is still breaking box office records, thrilling audiences and board members alike! In fact the same can be said for Hunchback and Giselle.
"Dumbing down of the classics" was a term regularly applied to our work in the North. Both Christopher and Michael came under some unfair attack for the choices that they made. Quite often we challenged convention by simply placing the action in a different period or setting, but never at the expense of sacrificing the original's integrity.
One could argue that Derek Deane's productions are also popularist yet perhaps he has simply challenged convention by taking a traditional ballet and transplanting it from the usual proscenium arch situation to the 'round'... and why not? The public came in droves. ENB is a big company and well suited to performing the classics as they were originally conceived, but then so is the Royal Ballet. My experience with these ballets has involved both traditional and new productions over the years. Being in a busy touring company you soon find out just what your public want to see and if they chose to see a more conventional Swan Lake they go to a big company, of which there are three very good ones to chose from. Christopher and Michael's productions, like Matthew Bourne's merely offered a valid alternative. Originality and a new spin on themes that are timeless. One can measure the success of this approach by simply looking at audience attendance figures!
As members of the paying public I do think that the audience deserve the right to decide for themselves and never to be patronised or confused by 'experts'. As artists it is our role to enrich, educate and entertain.
In art as in life there are no wrong or right ways to do something... only choices. Vive la difference.
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