THE history of theatre, film and TV is strewn with adaptations of famous works that have proved disastrous rather than successful. When in 2000 director/choreographer Matthew Bourne decided to marry the music of one of the world’s most popular operas, Bizet’s Carmen, with James M Cain’s novel and 1945 film noir The Postman Only Rings Twice, it looked like a project doomed to failure.
The doubters did not take into account Bourne’s vivid imagination and terrific ability to marry movement to music, which resulted in a unique production that thrilled audiences for the next 16 years. Now, after a ten year break and with a new group of outstandingly talented dancers, this wonderful piece of theatre is back on tour.
The action slips as easily as if originally intended from a 19th century Spanish cigarette factory, the surrounding hills and a bull ring, to a 1950s mid-west American greasy garage/diner. And Terry Davies and Rodion Shchedrin’s Carmen Suite, based on Bizet’s score, is arranged in such a manner that you would swear it was written to fit the story and choreography devised by Bourne.
Not surprisingly, after witnessing the amount of energy required to go with dance skills, all the named roles are shared between two or three dancers, and judging from the vital, skilfully imaginative work of the ensemble, those waiting in the wings would undoubtedly match the performances of Harrison Dowzell as the drifter Luca, Ashley Shaw’s temptress Lana, wife of Adam Galbraith’s dull, brutish garage/diner owner Dino, Anna-Maria De Freitas, bringing a breath of innocence to Lana’s sister Rita, and Leonardo McCorkindale, Angelo, painting a finely drawn portrait of a young man searching for his personal sexuality.
One of the greatest things that Matthew Bourne and his New Adventures company bring to dance shows is the wide range of audiences their productions attract. Teachers and enthusiastic pupils who dominate audiences for top-of-the-range ballet, find themselves outnumbered by individuals of all ages, who flock to a New Adventures production, to enjoy the pure theatricality.
You do not have to be a lover of dance or an authority of ballet to enjoy The Car Man, just a lover of good theatre.
GRP
Photographs by Johan Persson