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"L’Heure Exquise" une variation sur le thème de "Oh! Les Beaux Jours", de l’auteur Samuel Beckett.
"The Exquisite Hour", a variation on the theme of "Oh! Happy Days", by the author Samuel Beckett
By Maurice Béjart
"The Artistic Magpie: Béjart And His Beckett"
"Oh! Happy Days", one of the most important 20th century plays (according to Béjart), was the major stimuli for his work of the same name. Béjart insists, however, that his piece is not a choreographic adaptation of the original play. Instead, Béjart attempted to remain true to Samuel Beckett’s spirit, designing a piece that was primarily abstract in choreographic terms.
The Beckett Play
The Beckett play focuses on a woman, Winnie, who has only half a working body. The lower half of her body is engulfed by a ‘hill’. Her ever-present husband is an integral part of the play, as is a large black bag. Through the duo’s dialogue, the general human condition is contemplated. How shall we live...? How shall we kill time...? How can we cope with such a state of being...? Such questions lead to recollections that are couched in loneliness.
Contextualisation of Béjart’s Work
This is not Béjart’s first attempt to tamper with theatrical texts. In 1957, his "Sonate à Trois" was developed from Satre’s "Huis Clos". Similarly, Béjart’s "Les Chaises" (1981) was adapted from Ionesco’s play. These borrowings from the theatrical world are commonplace for Béjart, in that he has been an avid reader of theatrical and philosophical texts since childhood. Ever the artistic magpie, Béjart draws upon the full range of these texts, as well as other art forms, for his choreographies. This is certainly apparent in his most recent work; "Oh! Les Beaux Jours".
The work germinated in 1967, when Béjart created a solo entitled "L’Heure Exquise" for one of his prima ballerinas; Mathé Souverbie. Seated on a chair, she moved between happiness and solitude, sometimes dancing to the music, at other times hardly able to talk. This solo was later reworked for a concert in Paris, wherein a duo was developed from the original solo, and combined with large extracts of the Beckett play "Oh! Les Beaux Jours". For this interpretation, the set design was also a chair, upon which the dancer Madeleine Renaud would sit.
Following Béjart’s viewing of Peter Brook’s "Oh! Happy Days", Béjart was again drawn to the Beckett play, but wanted to create a piece that was more true to its source. This was eventually achieved through the choreography for Carla Fracci in 1998, which premiered at the Turin Festival. The Lausanne performance derived from the 1998 piece, but this time it was danced by Maina Gielgud and Martyn Fleming. (You would be right in thinking that Gielgud was a familiar name, since Maina is the authentic niece of comedian Sir John Gielgud).
The Lausanne Performance
The fundamental link with Beckett’s character and Maina Gielgud is the bag, in which Gielgud finds an old pair of ballet slippers that she begins to stitch. As she deftly sews on the ribbons, she recollects the ballets in which she has danced, and considers how much of her life has been spent in the ballet profession. The curtains open onto Beckett’s infamous ‘hill’, on which an impressive two thousand ballet shoes are apparently glued; a ‘photo album’ jam-packed with a lifetime of fond dancing memories. Indeed, longevity is one of the sub-themes in the piece, since the audience is immediately confronted with a ballerina who is well past her dancing prime. At the age of fifty-seven, it is hard to believe that Gielgud (who incidentally has the body of a twenty-year old) is still able to perform with such charismatic presence. Her dual role of ageing woman and child was superbly evident, due to her dramatic abilities and technical excellence. She provided the audience with a mesmerising interpretation of Béjart’s Beckett. As for Béjart himself, he managed to woo his Swiss audience once more with his choreographic expertise (and of course his own longevity as an artist, since he has been choreographing for more than fifty years).
La Vie est la Danse
Speaking in near-perfect French, Gielgud nonchalantly sews, and the audience immediately warms to her sweet memories of a life in dance. "La vie est la danse" ("Life is dance") Gielgud exclaims, and for both Gielgud and Béjart the words ring true. Longevity manifests itself again, as the duo hold the stage, moving through a lifetime of emotions during their gruelling 1½ hour performance. Indeed, it is their interplay that is one of the most impressive aspects of this work. Their relationship is all at once loving, supportive, comical, desperate, and filled with misunderstandings. The transitions between these emotions are smooth, and the audience follows the narrative well, since the dancers elucidate the French text with intricate gestures and actions.
Ballet Memories
Béjart’s "beaux jours" are the memories of a professional ballerina, but these are not always idealised in the piece. Instead, the harsh reality of the ballerina’s existence is portrayed. Gielgud dons her ballet shoes for the first time in the piece as she is freed from the ‘hill’, and lovingly ties the ribbons, performing relevés, petit jetés and extended arabesques. She delights in the familiar movements, and the audience simultaneously appreciates her dancing abilities. Nonetheless, the audience is quickly reminded of the pain and discipline involved in reaching such heights. Fleming directs Gielgud as he scampers up to the top of the hill, overseeing her dancing and shouting "Travaillez!" ("Work!"). He also brings her a ballet barre, and she instinctively begins her daily exercise ritual. When she becomes too exuberant and pirouettes wildly off stage, Fleming carries her back on as stiff as the famous Coppélia, and then wakens her from her lifeless state. She is controlled and manipulated, then gently revived by the ballet shoes being placed in her willing hands. The irony is that Gielgud seems to thrive on this kind of discipline and control, and that the ballet shoes (which symbolise her life in dance) have the power to awaken her from her death-like trance. It is for this reason and this reason only that she exists... to dance...
The lonely and depressing aspects of a ballerina’s life are also revealed. At one point, Gielgud rummages through her bag and shares its content with the audience. A strange array of objects are placed carefully on the floor; a red rose, a powder compact... and then a gun. Gielgud initially holds it at arm’s length in terror, and then swiftly directs its nozzle to her temple. Her body is rigid with fear, and she clearly contemplates suicide. This action is repeated several times in the piece, but each time the tension is broken by Fleming. He physically carries her away from her problems, and supports her body against his own. The symbolism is easy to decipher.
Style
Although ballet technique dominates, this piece is sprinkled with prolific aspects of modern dance. At one time, Fleming lifts and supports Gielgud in a beautiful moment of balletic poise and grace. As suddenly as this aesthetic vision is created it is shattered, when Gielgud stretches across Fleming’s back as he crawls forwards like a tortoise encumbered by her weight. Gielgud is then light and ethereal as she is lifted high onto Fleming’s shoulders, but as she wraps her straddling legs inelegantly around his torso, her human qualities are instantly revealed.
Accompaniment
The music is an edited mixture of Webern, Mahler and Mozart, and the text that is spoken, comprises memoirs of a ballet dancer at work and at rest. Silence is also deliberately interwoven with this accompaniment. The whole seems to fit together in an endless bubbling stream of fragmentation - there is never a moment when anything seems out of place.
Conclusion
Béjart hopes to tour this piece and bring it to London, so English audiences may well be treated to this entertaining and thought-provoking work. The piece is very "Béjart" in terms of its theatrical qualities, but unlike many of his ballets, this has a sincerity and depth that cannot help but reach the audience. Gielgud’s mature imagination and mastery over her own body, as well as her moments of physical strength and fragility, create a convincing formula. She brings to "Oh! Les Beaux Jours!" the richness of her personal and professional life experiences, and that combination alone will surely guarantee this work’s box-office popularity.
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