• Linnane as Oscar in his jail cell. Photo by Christopher Rodgers-Wilson.
    Linnane as Oscar in his jail cell. Photo by Christopher Rodgers-Wilson.
  • Callum Linnane as Oscar, Sharni Spencer as Constance and Joseph Caley as Robbie Ross. Photo by Christopher Rodgers-Wilson.
    Callum Linnane as Oscar, Sharni Spencer as Constance and Joseph Caley as Robbie Ross. Photo by Christopher Rodgers-Wilson.
  • Benjamin Garrett as Bosie and Linnane as Oscar. Photo by Christopher Rodgers-Wilson.
    Benjamin Garrett as Bosie and Linnane as Oscar. Photo by Christopher Rodgers-Wilson.
  • Ako Kondo as the Nightingale with Callum Linnane as Oscar. Photo by Christopher Rodgers-Wilson.
    Ako Kondo as the Nightingale with Callum Linnane as Oscar. Photo by Christopher Rodgers-Wilson.
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Regent Theatre, Melbourne
Reviewed September 13

Oscar Wilde: wit, raconteur, literary master, loving husband and father, aesthete, homosexual and now gay icon. Such richness to bring to any performing art! Such a story – such a life! World renowned choreographer Christopher Wheeldon has taken the challenge that is Wilde, and woven a full-length ballet from life and story. Not only is this an ambitious undertaking but it is a commission by the Australian Ballet and a world premiere. There is so much to work with, and so many possibilities for handling the material. Each choice leads in a particular direction. Every inclusion necessitates something else being left out.

Wheeldon has chosen to set the story in its historical context of Victorian times. In doing so, the work starkly contrasts modern day values with Wilde’s era. We are confronted with the cruelty of jail sentences to anyone "outed" for same sex relationships. It shows that the indecency lies in society (or more precisely, the law, that was out of step with behaviour).

Wheeldon has also chosen to meld together Wilde’s life and art. He has taken a short story – The Nightingale and the Rose - and woven it through the first act’s account of Wilde’s life. In the second act, it is the novella The Picture of Dorian Gray. Both powerful morality tales, they interplay and give a sort of commentary on Wilde’s life. Sacrifices can be futile and love can be betrayed. Values can be lost when appetites are over-indulged.

The ballet opens with a prelude set in 1895. Wilde is being tried for indecency, having been informed on by the father of Wilde’s lover (Lord Queensbury and Lord Alfred Douglas (Bosie) respectively). A narrator (Sean O’Shea) appears on stage at the beginning and end of the ballet and provides some factual context. 

Act 1 takes the audience into Reading Gaol, where Wilde (Callum Linnane on opening night) and his shadow (Adam Elmes) enter reveries of the past – happy times reading his own The Nightingale and the Rose to his children. The Nightingale appears and her story plays out in fragments. Wilde recalls his rise to fame and his dazzling circle of friends. Finally, in this act, he meets his first male lover, Robbie Ross (Joseph Caley) who entices Wilde into a double life of both domesticity and immersion in an underworld of sensuality.

The second act finds Wilde still in jail, ravaged by ill-health – both physical and mental. His reveries now turn to The Picture of Dorian Gray, paralleling the decline of both the writer and the fictional character. In a final gesture, the dead Nightingale is tenderly laid out by Wilde.

The movement language of Oscar is very specific. Much of it seems flattened, in that instead of including swirling steps or big, juicy circular choreography, turns, jumps and sequences seem to be almost on the one plane. Dancers (particularly Wilde and Bosie) make elongated shapes flat to the audience. Turns tend to be tight and circumscribed, often with arms twined about the torso and many times with feet together. In some ways this is successful in conveying the publicly bounded, secretive nature of men’s sexual relationships with one another in Wilde’s time. There is almost a two-dimensional look to the movement. The problem is that there is too much of this quality and not enough contrast.

The appearance of the three actresses in Act 1 (danced beautifully by Benedicte Bemet as Sara Bernhardt, Mia Heathcote as Lillie Langtry and Jill Ogai as Ellen Terry) although different in tone, also all have a rather flattened look – the women are confections to be viewed at a distance. It is a matter of history that Wilde adored them, but there is no sense of human vibrancy in the way these women are depicted. Instead, they seem to be more decorative than human. Wilde's wife, Constance (Sharni Spencer) is more warmly drawn, showing her first as a carefree young woman and later as destroyed and tormented. Even so, this characterisation felt a little dichotomous.

Similarly, the portrayal of the love between Wilde and Bosie (Benjamin Garrett) lacks passion. Their choreography is similarly flattened and constrained. This might be deliberate but the audience needs to see inside that relationship and feel the very human pull between the men. The narrative of the ballet has Wilde almost as a spectator to his own life and work, rather than being in the thick of its action. The Nightingale character – a tragic creature who sacrifices her life for the trifling whims of a young man pursuing a love – is quite spiky in its movement language – appropriately bird-like. She was tenderly portrayed by Ako Kondo, laying bare the creature’s vulnerability and open-hearted sacrifice.

The same dancer is cast in the roles of Bosie and the student in The Nightingale and the Rose. I can only suppose that they were both callow youths, out to get what they wanted, but I found it a peculiar device. Similarly, one dancer (Adam Elmes) is both Wilde’s shadow and Dorian Gray, which became confusing in the Dorian reverie.

A highlight is the drag dancers (not credited in the program notes) who inhabit the molly house (gay club). They start with a vaudeville flair and then keep the audience transfixed with their jetes and grand pirouettes al a seconde, which happen to include jumps at each revolution. The choreography is much freer in this divertissement – perhaps a reflection that the men are expressing who they really are.

Some of the design for this ballet (Jean-Marc Puissant for stage design and David Bergman for video design) is a little hokey. A moon blinks, closes its eyes, weeps blood. Tree branches are lowered to the stage and lifted again to create depth but are clunky. Overall, there are some lovely visuals – lush blossoms, grand arches. But then, Wilde was never about subtlety.

Wheeldon has the stamina for creating long works. (Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland clocks in at two hours excluding intervals, ditto A Winter’s Tale.) The length of Oscar is a little challenging at over two hours. The music, by Joby Talbot (composer also of Alice), is varied in character without sounding fresh or particularly original. The costumes, which are decorated with scraps of Oscar's writings, look great up close, but the text is not visible at a distance.

The Australian Ballet is being housed at the Regent for three years while the State Theatre is renovated. The stage has been raised by half a metre and the orchestra pit has been extended into the stalls. From where I was sitting, the orchestra is all too prominent and the conductor is entirely visible as he is at audience height. Hence the dance is mediated through the orchestra and its conductor – they become part of the dance. Furthermore, the dancers' feet could not always be seen.

Oscar is ambitious and theatrical but is overshadowed by the genius of the real Oscar. It has a big musical theatre feel that might resonate with audiences. Genre crossovers are often interesting and even ground-breaking, but in this case, Oscar Wilde the man refuses to be tethered to a dance narrative.   

– SUSAN BENDALL

'Oscar' runs until September 24 in Melbourne, then November 8 to 23 at the Sydney Opera House.

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