Queensland Ballet: Peter Pan -
Playhouse, QPAC, 26 June -
Queensland Ballet’s (QB) Peter Pan, the second production of the company’s 2015 season of fairy tale ballets, promised a huge dollop of fantastical story telling, to be delivered by an equally large measure of technical wizardry, and in the main it delivered. Choreographed by Trey McIntyre in 2002 for Houston Ballet, this recreation of J. M. Barrie’s timeless story, first told as a play in 1904, combines dance with theatrical pantomime to create a visual feast.
The colourful set, designed by Thomas Boyd, comprises many separate, moving parts that suggest place, but also allow the two worlds of fantasy and reality to merge. Costumes designed by Broadway award-winner Jeanne Button, may not portray characters as they are more commonly envisioned – for instance Tinker Bell, wears a green wig and her lips also match the green embellishments on her bronze coloured leotard and fishtail skirt - nevertheless they are all bold and witty in their conception.
The ballet opens with a whimsical “fairy” light show and moves swiftly from the Darling’s home to Neverland and back, in three short acts. The score, drawn from an eclectic selection of Edward Elgar’s symphonic works, dances and suites, anchors the action firmly in the Britain of Barrie’s play.
In a clever construct, the grownups (Mr and Mrs Darling and the maid Liza) are distinguished from the children and the inhabitants of Neverland by their movement style - stiff, angular and truncated. Wearing masks and wigs, they are expressionless and almost robotic, in contrast to the more fluidly natural movement of the children and the various inhabitants of Neverland.
Redskins, pirates, lost boys, mermaids, and the essential crocodile, add mischief and mayhem to this Neverland. The QB dancers all embraced these characterisations with gusto and conviction.
Soloist Camilo Ramos captured the wild, free spirited character of Peter Pan in a charismatic and athletic performance. He was a perfect foil to principal Yanela Pinera’s charming Wendy.
The diminutive Lina Kim was a captivating bundle of energy as the young Michael Darling, while Principal Laura Hidalgo’s Tinker Bell was suitably mischievous and mercurial, although she featured little after the first act.
While there are few purely dance moments in the ballet, Clare Morehen, Lisa Edwards, Vanessa Morelli and Hao Bin as mermaids and merman, were sublime in a sinuously fluid interlude, which finished in a beautifully constructed tableau of intertwined bodies.
From Vito Bernasconi’s entrance as Captain Hook in the second act, the work took off. Sporting a single oversized skeletal digit instead of a hook for his left hand, Bernasconi's exceptional comic timing enlivened the performance, cementing his reputation as a terrific dramatic dancer. His dance of seduction with Pinera was a highlight – tightly choreographed, and executed with masterful timing, this duet was a comedic delight.
The production depends heavily on special effects, particularly the spectacular flying scenes, but in this performance these proved to be its Achilles heel. A clanging of the “flying” mechanism was clearly audible on occasions, while another technical issue presumably, forced the early closure of the house curtain during the final scene, which then began again. It was an unfortunate distraction.
The story of Peter Pan celebrates the child hopefully still in all of us, while recognising too that inevitably we must all grow older. This production does its best to encapsulate that spirit, but occasionally fails to soar.
- DENISE RICHARDSON