Palais Theatre, Melbourne, April 14
There is a long tradition of cross-dressing and deliberate gender confusion in theatre. It is seen in opera, straight and musical theatre and ballet. Ballet students read of how male dancers originally took all roles in early court ballet since women were prohibited from performing. In the 20th century, interest in issues of gender roles and representation saw experimentation across all art forms with the way that gender, identity and sexuality were presented. Alongside this grew a drag tradition that was typically a non-mainstream performance practice but which has been opened up to a more general audience through media exposure.
So here we are in 2012 with another tradition that has become its own sub-genre of drag, mixed with ballet and presented with the good-naturedness of comedy, here represented by Les Ballets Eloelle, on tour from the United States. Les Ballets Trocadero De Monte Carlo and Les Ballets Grandiva are forerunners of this blend. This genre certainly has an audience, as evidenced by the enjoyment of many viewers at the Palais on Saturday night. Presented in three acts, Les Ballets Eloelle's Men in Pink Tights parodied and played with many of ballet's best known works.
The first part cavorted its way through a potted version of Swan Lake. The audience laughed along, anticipating and appreciating the sight gags, clumsiness and moments of elegance. The cygnets were an especially huge hit; the more recognisable the choreography, the greater the pleasure of the audience.
Act two ventured into Le Corsaire, Les Sylphides and The Dying Swan. The humour continued to be predictable and broad but enjoyed by many audience members. Contrasts between daintier dancers and more robustly built blokes caused mirth. Slapstick reigned. By the third act, the audience was noticeably fatigued and less able to recognise the divertissement and thus enter into the comical departures. Interestingly, this act seemed to be a more serious attempt to show what the dancers could do.
On several levels Men in Pink Tights did not work for this reviewer. It seemed to be built on the premise that there is something inherently funny about men dressing as women. To reject that premise denies access to the humour. There could be something subversive or insightful in the act of using strongly built men to represent the extreme feminine of the classical ballerina. Although Les Ballets Eloelle's intention was comic and light-hearted and aimed at a general audience, it lacked an element of newness, surprise or challenge that would have made for better comedy.
Drag works on an illusion of femininity that is brutally undercut by obvious masculinity. There was very little illusion here. Comic ballet, while including elements of physical ineptitude, often relies on the dancer performing something unexpectedly spectacular, that is, setting up an expectation of clumsy incompetence but delivering a blow in the form of brilliance (Gideon Obarzanek achieved this to a greater extent in There's Definitely a Prince Involved). There was some competent dancing but not remarkable dancing in this program. An obvious part of the problem with Men in Pink Tights is that it seems to be a slightly dated idea. Since Matthew Bourne's Swan Lake, very flawed as it was, the need for men to parody the feminine in ballet seems redundant. Bourne claimed the swan as a completely believable masculine identity.
All comedy is a matter of taste and one needs to be in the target demographic to appreciate it. Men in Pink Tights has its place and its audience but ultimately this reviewer wondered why they were doing it and cringed a bit at the clenched and sickled feet on pointe.
-- SUSAN BENDALL
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