Witness and absorb a momentous event for so many creative people, created and brought to life over such a long period of time, and I’m overwhelmed to comment and critique. I suppose some will write reviews of this. Good on ‘em.
This ballet, Tom Sawyer, is big. Yeah, that’s incredibly deep and insightful, I know. But if you have the urge to see it, I’d be interested in your review. This ballet had me thinking about this whole review “dance” in the city of Kansas City. I mean, who really cares? We have one fading newspaper, God Bless ‘em, and the small circle of writers are tapped out with deadlines. They have no competition and their articles are prosaic to say the least.
And who cares? Well, the ticket offices still do, to an extent. But that’s changing as well as theatres are socially networking really hard and smarter these days. Who needs a critic? In the first instance, find me one? Hello? Critic? Jiminy Cricket? Artistic conscience? Are you out there?
Tom Sawyer will take time to sink-in. Nothing I can write here will mean a hill of beans or a bucket of whitewash…
But…you knew there’s a butt, I mean but…not to be a butt but:
- at times the stage was really crowded and with the crowd I missed a ton…
- some of the scenes reminded me of pageants and parades…
- the dancer who played Tom Sawyer didn’t dance enough…he stood around, reminding me of Vanna White (see photo above)…the dancer playing Huck Finn stood around a great deal as well...move people, move!...jump over the fence!!!!!
- I kept thinking of Billy Elliot which could have been inspired by Mark Twain’s book, and Billy may have read it, but he’s fictitious, but he went on to be a “ballee” (ballet) dancer, and then the movie turned into a Broadway musical, well actually it was borne in London as are many cool “Broadway” shows these days, like Jerusalem…have ya seen that one? Anyway…Tom Sawyer even looked like Billy Elliot…really…
- in the novel, Tom leaps fences on at least a dozen occasions…now that would be fun…but Tom the dancer had no such choreographic instruction…they just painted it…ho hum but Aunt Polly was impressed.
- the fence in the novel is described as a “board fence” (that’s a fence with horizontal not vertical pickets) 9 feet high and 90 feet long…were this to have been a “picket fence” a la the Father Knows Best Show, they could have built another “St. Petersburg, MO”, ya know? Plus a “board fence”, which is like a ladder in a way, is easier to jump…let’s blame this image misconception on Norman Rockwell and Thomas Hart Benton, OK? (see the book, Chapter II, first page…)
- the fence is a cool image…and it slips in throughout the novel…and it could have been a staple prop in the ballet, butt, I mean but…
- the scenery was busy too…whew…
- there seemed more pantomime than dance to me, due to the authors seeming intent for “rich narrative”…
- the music reminded me of Copeland…Billy the Kid…floating on some Stephen Foster…
- and “show” was very…Caucasian, given the setting of Missouri circa 1840. Even the music felt rather…milky…
I don’t wish to seem an ungrateful spoiled person as I was invited to see this…and genuinely felt the joy of the occasion… I am not a paid critic, on McClatchy’s payroll, so this is free from me to you. Last night was a dress rehearsal after all. This ballet will endure and go through some changes, I believe. To me it needs to be “quieter”, more suggestive…but it was really funny in places, truly great performances…I’m even contemplating the definition of “ballet”…in fact I think Whitener and Yeston just redefined it last night…I can see this production in a theatre, on Broadway, even in Vegas…and yes…on film.
Duh…What do I know?...Absolutely nuthin’…you decide. OK?
photo of Vanna, I mean Tom, by Rachael Jane :-)
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