Last night, we attended NYCB’s Spring Gala. Run time: 2 hours 13 minutes. Program (All Robbins): Circus Polka, Four Seasons, West Side Story. Color scheme: black and yellow. Number of fourth ring audience members wearing fleece jackets and jeans: at least four.
CIRCUS POLKA
A ringmaster (originally played by Robbins) cracks his whip as three waves of girls dash around, the oldest girls in blue, the middle in mint, the youngest in pink. The piece is charming and pointless and over in minutes, but we tear up on cue when the tiniest girls come onstage in their miniature pink leotards–and again when the girls run into formation, spelling out the initials “J.R.,” and two pipsqueaks kneel down to form the periods between the letters. “Not much to that dance,” a woman next to us remarked. “Yes, but it sells tickets. The dancers’ mothers–YOU know,” said the woman two seats down (who was wearing turquoise rhinestoned formal flip-flops).
FOUR SEASONS
We pity the dancers cast as Summer. For one thing, their costumes are lemon yellow. For another, their choreography is languorous and includes lots of shuffling along on turned-in feet. It’s a relief when Fall takes over and Daniel Ulbricht, shirtless and mischievous, leaps onstage. Ulbricht’s part, a showy crowd-pleaser, inevitably overshadows the other male lead in Fall, played last night by Benjamin Millepied. But Millepied’s jaw-droppingly bad dancing made him impossible to ignore. “Oh God,” whispered the woman to our right; “uh-oh,” said the gentleman to our left, as Millepied crashed to his knees like he’d been shot, landed on stiff, straight legs, and performed every pas de chat with his knees in parallel. The comparison to Ulbricht was embarrassing. We realize D.U. is about a foot shorter than most of the other men in the company, but he’s still a dude, and he’s still musclebound; if he can land soundlessly, why can’t the other guys? Getting off the ground is important, yes, but so is landing without a tremendous thud audible from the last seat of the fourth ring.
WEST SIDE STORY SUITE
As a musical, “West Side Story” is nearly perfect. As a ballet, it’s misconceived. Robbins handles the problem of non-singing ballet dancers in two awkward ways: the solos (“Something’s Coming,” “Somewhere”) are performed by professional singers, who creep to the side of the stage and belt it out in the dark. The group numbers (“Cool,” “America”) are shrieked by the dancers. Neither solution feels comfortable. The solo numbers ask us to ignore the physical presence of the talented singers, and the group numbers ask us to pretend that classically trained ballet dancers have the chops to handle Bernstein’s music.
We realize this is musical theater blasphemy, but does anyone else feel that “West Side Story,” in all its incarnations, smells a bit musty after all these years? Damian Woetzel’s haircut isn’t the only outmoded design element. The Sharks’ shiny red shirts and skinny pants, the Jets’ light blue jeans, the mambo, the knife fights, the fake Puerto Rican cadences–it all seems quaint and irrelevant, especially performed live. The most successful scene, “Somewhere,” works because it’s not wedded to a specific time and place. The best ballets are abstractions.
