Sum-up
A brooding piece of dramatic dance based around a family in turmoil that leaves a mother contemplating killing her son. Wonderfully realised as an overall production, it's the dancers that make this work sparkle so (I should really say, given the content, make the work so depressing). Cathy Marston continues to move forward and I hope this work is toured by her new company.
Background
Marston is coming to the end of her 3 years as Associate Artist of the Royal Opera house and is about to bounce on and form her own company - the Cathy Marston Project. It's been a fertile time that has seen a mix of abstract and loosely-coloured dramatic works. Ghosts however is her longest piece conceived at the Opera House and deliberately and methodically thought through with a dramaturge to convey a relatively complex story without having to know it all beforehand. It's still a good idea to read the synopsis in the programme though - I think understanding the ending is very hard without. Or read the overview...
Story
Henrik Ibsen's 1881 play Ghosts is about family tragedy: love - true and licentious - and its bitter consequences as the past (ghosts) is visited on the present. It's centred on Mrs Alving, 'alone' in a loveless marriage to Captain Alving, a drunkard and syphilitic womaniser who makes both his wife and their maid pregnant - Oswald Alving and Regina (the Maid's daughter) are the result. Mrs Alving seeks solace with the local Pastor but he does the right (religious) thing and rejects her. Oswald and Regina, unaware they are brother and sister, are attracted to each other - the sex inevitable - as is the death of the Captain from his syphilis. Everything unravels as Oswald is found to have been born with his father's syphilis and Regina leaves when their true sister - brother relationship is revealed and the play ends with the mother contemplating giving her son an overdose rather then see him descend into a painful syphilitic death. It's not barrel-of-laughs territory.
Read more about Ibsen and Ghosts on the Ibsen website, though note that the ballet does not slavishly follow the original story. http://www.ibsen.net/?id=83
Music
An original score by Dave Maric (he did Broken Fiction with Marston two years ago) for five musicians - strings, harp, clarinet and marimba - in a moody minimalist, percussive style, augmented by dark electric sounds. It won't be everybody's cup of tea but it punctuates the action like a rapier and layers on the doom that surrounds all on stage.
Sets and Design
The action takes place in the kitchen and living area of the family house - suggested mainly by lights, projection screens and the vestiges of doors. It's a house laid bare, with all its secrets on show, and the design works well. Props are minimal and there is lots of room for dance. Notably a projection screen hangs over it all - and there are images of rain, dark clouds and the phases of the moon - not a sunny day in sight and I think Ibsen would have approved. By contrast the costumes were anything but minimal or stylised and included full-on 19th century long dresses for the women. Overall the design is stylish without drawing excessive attention to itself.
Choreography
My most enduring image, in a night of many, is Captain Alving forcing himself on his wife and rubbing his sweaty cropped and slobbering head all around hers - a disturbing display of feral dominance and the marking of human 'property'. Marston's duets continue to be highly watchable as bodies meander and push and knock each other like the contorted souls they are.
The one lighter moment in the piece also hits home as Oswald and Regina play around the kitchen table and with flour dust - amidst the gloom is a tightly-constructed gleam of normal fun. My only problem is that the costumes mute the movement happening underneath, of the legs particularly, a consequence of their realism and no big deal.
Charlotte Broom as Mrs Alving
© John Ross
Dancers
An absolutely crackling troupe of seven, all born communicators. Cleammie Sveass and Charlotte Broom play Mrs Alving - the latter as her older self, the former as a ghostly figure. Broom was a wonderful Principal with Northern Ballet Theatre and after a spell with Cullberg Ballet is now, thank goodness, back in the UK. One glance can tell a lifetime of denial and hardship. Matthew Hart (Oswald) and Jenny Tattersall (Regina) are equally well known to many and in these roles they look particularly right - she a flirting girl and he a puckish boy - at first anyway - his descent to illness deeply touching. Christopher Akrill is the Captain who causes all the troubles - a hard drinking masculine portrayal that made for most uncomfortable watching. But as I say it was a wonderful cast overall and credit is also due to Omar Gordon, the Pastor and Marina Langmann as the Maid.
Does it Work?
A piece where all the components are honed and slot perfectly together to convey a painful story. It worked for me and this is more 'readable' than some other new takes on story ballets that have gone on stage at the Opera House over the last 10 years. Work this good will always find an audience, though its depth and complexity might still bar it from finding the fuller audience that Marston deserves.
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