Grand, Leeds
Anyone trying to put a version of Cleopatra on stage has the shadow of Shakespeare to contend with. Antony and Cleopatra still ranks as theatre's most extravagantly poetic lovers. One of several intelligent choices made by choreographer David Nixon is to define his own narrative terrain: not only widening out the story to include Cleopatra's life with Ptolemy and Julius Caesar, but to add more political background as the action shuttles between Egypt and Rome.
And if that sounds like a fact-heavy project for a ballet, Nixon and his design team have worked hard at honing their storytelling dynamic. Using a minimalist set with detail added by digital projection, the ballet moves at impressive speed from scene to scene.
The plot itself is compressed into neat, symbolic blocks of action. And if Nixon occasionally includes too much information (Caesar's epileptic fit adds little to the story), he's also clever at distilling it – as in the battle between Octavian and Antony, which is compressed into a goading, circling duel of dance forces.
In terms of choreography, the ballet makes simple but graphic stylistic distinctions between the sensual, yet abstracted elegance of the Egyptians and the blockish, muscular heft of the Romans. Smartest of all is Nixon's device of doubling up the snake that kills Cleopatra with Wadjet – the household god of the Pharaohs. Shadowing the queen throughout the ballet, this fluid, slippery character seems to be tracking Cleopatra through to the tragic fate awaiting her.
Choices like these reflect Nixon's determination to find a contemporary style for the story ballet, to side step the easy cliche. Yet for all its fleet-footed clarity and the sharpness of Martha Leebolt's portrayal of Cleopatra, this is a work that ultimately sacrifices character for story. Covering as much narrative ground as the ballet does, every individual has to arrive on stage fully formed. There's no room for mystery, complexity or choice and no sense of interior life.
This issue is aggravated by the absence of texture and depth in Claude-Michel Schönberg's score. It's a measure of how oddly disengaging this production is that the most compelling male character on stage is Octavian – Hironao Takahashi conveying a tense, enigmatic energy – and that the most impassioned duet is not between Cleopatra and her lovers, but between her and Wadget as the latter coaxes her towards death.