Fortnight Publications Ltd.

Aspiring ClarasAuthor(s): Judith JenningsSource: Fortnight, No. 292 (Feb., 1991), p. 32Published by: Fortnight Publications Ltd.Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/25552737 .

Accessed: 25/06/2014 01:35

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at .http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp

.JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range ofcontent in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new formsof scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.

.

Fortnight Publications Ltd. is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Fortnight.

http://www.jstor.org

This content downloaded from 195.34.79.228 on Wed, 25 Jun 2014 01:35:21 AMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

Aspiring

Claras THE FIRST MAJOR event in Dublin's year as European City of Culture, in the

wake of Glasgow's glorious reign (Fortnight 289), gracefully transferred the crown with the Scottish Ballet's production of The Nutcracker at the

Point, Judith Jennings writes.

This version, by the late Peter Darrell, based on Ivanov's choreography, was

staged six years ago in Belfast. So it was interesting to see the interpretation of the new artistic director, the star

ballerina Galina Samsova.

The prologue was disappointing. A minute section of the vast stage was used for the party, dressed sombrely in

reds and greens?with a modest Christ mas tree, a Nutcracker of questionable

gender and none of the Dickensian

jocosity of that Belfast performance. Clara's dream was censored. The

mice, in what should have been a

fearsome battle with the tin soldiers, were too playful and the Mouse King only went one round.

Nevertheless, a pattern was evolving. Clara and her Nutcracker, now a prince, Tristan Borrer?who must have felt

embarrassed in modestly fringed silver?were transported to the land of Ice and Snow. The stage broadened into

a frozen panorama of softly falling flakes, on which the male corps de ballet landed heavily. Clara sat wide-eyed, flanked by polar bears and trilling choir as the Snow Queen and Prince merged in a fluent pas de deux.

There was a gasp when the curtain went up on act two. Sugar plums?pink, golden, orange, green, blue and yel low?were suspended across the stage.

These colours were duplicated in the exquisite costumes of the lissome soloists. Memorable were the provoca tive French dancers, the highly strung

Chinese ladies, Roddie Patrizio's bravura sailor's hornpipe and the

romantic Waltz of the Flowers. The orchestra increased the momen

tum as we came to the dramatic se

quence with the principals. Unfortu

nately, this tremendous build-up

exaggerated the Prince's uncertainty and Sugar Plum's lifts were occasionally in the balance, although Linda Packer

continued to smile bravely. Full marks, though, for lighting and

design and the final smooth transition to the velveted Victorian drawing room,

when we had to accept that it had all been an Insubstantial pageant'.

There are many criticisms of Dublin's

programme for 1991: meagre budget, hypocritical in view of the rot behind the

Georgian facades, unimaginative, unbal

anced, elitist... But The Nutcracker was

unpretentious, in the pantomime tradition, delighting the family audi ence?in particular the aspiring Claras, who clustered at the stage door in the hope of capturing some magic. The Scottish Ballet tour will take in

Belfast in March.

Not quite reaching a consistently high standard? the Scottish Ballet at the Point

/if seems like carelessness

The prospective departure of Roland Jaquarello from the Lyric Theatre in Belfast at the end of this season raises fundamental questions about the theatre and its board. ROBIN GLENDINNING thinks it's time they were answered.

THE OCCASION WAS THE opening night in November of the revival of Over The Bridge. It was all too like far too many nights at the

Lyric Theatre Belfast in the last 20 years. The reputation of Sam Thompson's play

stems from the courage of its 1960 premiere?

having been suppressed by the establishment?

and its confrontation with the then unmention

able subject of sectarianism in industry. I

remember the excitement of it, of feeling for

the first time that theatre was meant after all to

deal with the society in which I actually lived. Yet, as I watched the revival, I felt not only

that the play had dated?its construction is

crude, its characterisation stereotypical and the

denouement sentimental. It does not face up to

the issues it raises with the unblinking honesty I once thought. Why is the action recurrently

moved forward by someone looking out of a

door and describing to everyone else what he

can see? Are the sub-plots really integral or are

they self-indulgent devices to introduce a few

'Ulster characters'? Why does the writer, hav

ing created a raving bigot in an early scene, have him suddenly and incredibly change sides

when the chips are down? Why does the author

need a saintly trade unionist to be murdered, and not the obvious victim?

Thompson's subject is the failure of Irish trade unionism to deal effectively with sectar

ian violence. The play nearly faces up to this

but the martyr/saint figure allows the author to

have his cake and eat it, indulging in sentimen

tal nostalgia about his non-sectarian working class heroes while neatly sidelining the Catho

lic to a hospital bed. Why the lack of motivation for the Catholic victim?

Given the flaws in the play, the director

needed to make a big contribution. His one

innovation was a quasi-Brechtian use of songs on scaffolding. Which was quite nice, but

achieved nothing because the rest of the piece was so static?not to say statuesque. Why did

so many scenes consist almost entirely of talk

ing heads until the moment when anger flared

up and everyone was at everyone else's throat?

Why did actors and actresses so often look like

misplaced furniture, until finally finding a real

piece of furniture on which to settle?

Yet everyone else at the Lyric that night seemed to find it wonderful. The play was a

classic, I was told. The production was marvel

lous, the humour unique?only in Belfast would

you get that sort of wit. The play was as relevant

as ever, etc, etc. The run was selling out.

Perhaps all these people were right. Maybe there are perfectly good answers to my ques tions. But, if not, this production and this

reaction reveal something very serious about

Belfast theatre and its audience. For what went

on in the Lyric that night was not professional theatre: it was 'church-hall' theatre.

Church-hall theatre is a useful and pleasur able activity in which locals go to see their

fellow locals perform. The atmosphere is rightly

self-congratulatory: it is, after all, primarily a

social occasion. Local humour and local ac

cents are sufficient to make the rafters roar. Far

too often in its history, the Lyric has been a very

expensive church hall.

In its 20-odd years the Lyric has failed to educate an audience. The undoubted, but infre

quent, successes have not been enough. There

must be a period of five to ten years of consis

tently high-class productions to win an audi

ence, to hold it, to be able to make demands on

it. This requires an artistic director of vision, drive and talent?and security of employment.

32 FEBRUARY FORTNIGHT

This content downloaded from 195.34.79.228 on Wed, 25 Jun 2014 01:35:21 AMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions