Rite of Spring & Petrushka - Fabulous Beast Dance Theatre - Sadlers Wells

To mark the 100th anniversay of the premiere of Stravinsky's The Rite of Spring, Sadlers Wells - <http://sadlerswells.com> - has commissioned a series of three events.  The first of these opened last night - 11.4.13 with The Rite of Spring and Petrushka by the Fabulous Beast Dance Theatre - <http://http://fabulousbeast.net>

I saw Michael Keegan-Dolan's Rite when it first opened in 2009 as I love the music.  At that time I was somewhat underwhelmed by the production.  I don't know what it was....was it too hard to work out?  Was it the masks?  The strange extra characters?  The dancers stripping off and putting on pretty print dresses?  I don't know, I just felt that it didn't live up to the music.

This time round Keegan-Dolan seems to have tightened it up.  Certainly the company is smaller.  The bits that irritated me before worked much better.  Perhaps I was channeling my Irish heritage more this time!

Last night was the first night of his new version of Petrushka.  I haven't seen Petrushka for years and years and years.  I remember it (vaguely) as being sad and full of emotions - the puppet with feelings.  Keegan-Dolan's version isn't as clear as that version in its narrative, but it does fall into similar sections.  Last night the 'first night gremlins' were out in force.  It was hard to tell if the lighting was playing up but the house lights would come on and the stage lights would go out, then it would be the opposite.  Technical blips or clever lighting design - not very clear!  However, it was most certainly a blip when all the dancers froze on stage and a figure jumped on stage and introduced himself as Michael Keegan-Dolan!  He said we were indeed victims of world premiere problems and that (after a quick discussion with the stage manager) could we be patient for two minutes for the problem to be resolved.  After the two minutes (or so) he came back on stage, joined one of the characters at the side, sang a snippet of a folk song and cued the dancers back in.

As it was we were almost at the end of the show, we were only waiting for a ladder to appear from above for 'Petrushka' to climb and end the show.

Petrushka has more dance than theatre when compared to The Rite.  Some of it is very good, some of it looks a bit clumpy and ugly.  But overall, I enjoyed the evening immensely.

Both pieces were expertly played by the  concert pianists by  Lidija and Sanja Bizjak.  The effect of four hands on one keyboard was wonderful!  And they even entertained us for part of the interval and whilst the technical hiatus was overcome.  What troopers!