|
Sitting
in
a
Portland's
tiny
Good
Theater
atop
Munjoy
Hill,
I
am
riveted
by
the
two-character
drama
playing
out
before
me.
The
play, Nureyev's Eyes,
by
David
Rush
explores
the
brief,
tumultuous
creative
interaction
between
artist
Jamie
Wyeth
and
dance
superstar
Rudolph
Nureyev
which
took
place
during
a
series
of
sittings
the
dancer
did
for
the
artist
in
the
1980s.
The
two
actors
do
not
resemble
the
historical
figures,
but
the
fireworks
they
create
transcend
into
the
metaphysical.
Rush's
110-minute
script
is
masterfully
written,
capturing
the
essence
of
these
icons
with
all
their
inner
angst
and
desperate
seeking
for
artistic
truth.
His
narrative
is
briskly
plotted,
laced
with
wit
and
pathos.
He
explores
the
quest
which
binds
these
two
giants
together:
finding
and
embracing
the
deepest
truth
in
one's
work
–
a
challenge
that
is
often
fraught
with
danger
and
disappointment.
Wyeth's
search
to
find
the
truth
in
Nureyev's
eyes
and
to
render
that
on
canvas
becomes
a
shared
search
to
find
his
own
parallel
truth,
one
that
he
discovers
mirrored
in
his
own
eyes
and
deep
in
his
soul.
The
play
is
filled
with
sharp
and
brilliant
repartee,
bold
egos
colliding
with
brilliant
fireworks,
and
also
with
a
poignant
vulnerability
and
tenderness.
The two-person cast plays off each other with perfect chemistry. As Jamie
Wyeth, Joe Bearor demonstrates a touching vulnerability, as he reveals his
insecurities, accumulated over years of living as the son of a famous father
and grandfather, and as he learns over the course of the friendship with
Nureyev to embrace the dark. He is, by turns, gentle and tough, boyish and
profound, finding the inner humanity of the character. Michael Grew, as
Nureyev, overcomes the fact that he does not at all resemble the exotic
Russian dancer, nor is he a dancer himself. But he manages slowly, slyly to
inhabit the role so perfectly that in a very short time all you see before you
is the dashing superstar of ballet. Both physically and emotionally, he
projects the dancer's ego that masks his own fears (which sometimes
border on paranoia), his regrets, his wily manipulativeness, his love of a
good battle with a worthy opponent.
The dance these two become entangled in is a high-stakes psychological
pas de deux in search of the answer to an unanswerable mystery: what
drives the artistic soul to create? And what makes that act of creation -
though it be of the moment – take on quasi eternal dimensions?
The questions linger long after the play is over. I am transported back to a
moment in time when I was eighteen years old and on a whim purchased
an orchestra second row center ticket to the Royal Ballet's Romeo and
Juliet at the old Metropolitan Opera House. The cast was headed by Dame
Margot Fonteyn and her new partner, Rudolph Nureyev, recently defected
from Russia and blazing like a meteor through the international world of
ballet. I fell in love that night with the Royal Ballet, choreographer Kenneth
Macmillan, Dame Margot, and David Blair in a breathtaking performance
as Mercutio. And I recognized the dazzling stage presence and power of
Nureyev. If he struck me then, and still for most of his career, as a
phenomenon who could never quite sublimate himself to the characters
and roles he was dancing – he was always NUREYEV - there was
nonetheless an irresistible, seductive, unforgettable aura to his dancing. He
was daring, dangerous, fierce, aggressive – from his Tatar roots – just as he
was a creature defying gravity. Over the years, I came to respect and revel
in his work because of the risks he was willing to take, the fearlessness of
his conceptions, and the undaunted, even defiant uniqueness of his
approach. As a celebrity he could be outrageous, rude, a divo, but as an
artist – like Maria Callas – he was uncompromising in his search for truth
for himself and the other dancers around him.
For weeks after seeing Nureyev's Eyes, I found myself on a quest to probe
the many contradictory, exasperating, uplifting, and unforgettable
qualities which made Nureyev unique. An excellent starting point is Julie
Kavanagh's comprehensive biography of the dancer (Nureyev. Vintage
Books. 2008). Kavanaugh covers the fifty-five years of the dancer's life in
great detail, starting with his birth on a train on the Trans-Siberian Railway
through his poor childhood in Ufa, his undeterred passion to become a
dancer, his schooling at the Kirov, his leap to freedom in 1961, and the
subsequent thirty plus years filled with voracious dancing, choreographing,
filmmaking around the globe, as well as a private life that was as colorful,
original, and unapologetic as any. Kavanaugh's prose is articulate, fluid,
and urbane. Her narrative is detailed and well researched, at the same
time that she is able to bring all the characters to life with vivid dialogue
and reminiscence. As a dance writer, she is superb, and she weaves into
the narrative eloquent descriptions of performances and classes, offering
knowledgeable analyses of the evolution of works and techniques and
styles.
The vivid elements of her writing translate very well into film, which is
exactly what screenwriter David Hare and director Ralph Fiennes did
when they made the film, The White Crow, using the first third of
Kavanaugh's book as its source. The title is a metaphor for Nureyev –
someone who stands out from the rest. The movie, filmed in Russian and
French with subtitles, as well as in English, stars Ukrainian dancer Oleg
Ivenko as Nureyev. Ivenko bears an uncanny resemblance to the young
dancer and is a compelling screen and dance presence. The film does a
fine job of examining the forces which came together to shape the artist –
from the dreary misery of his Siberian origins to his years at the Kirov –
ever the rebel, but still worshipping the art, the soul of dance itself.
Fiennes gives a masterfully understated and moving performance as
Alexander Pushkin, Nureyev's teacher, mentor, surrogate father and
cuckolded friend. The actual scenes of the defection at the Paris airport
follow Kavanaugh's book closely and are appropriately tense and thrilling.
The film also does a fine job of probing the psyche of the young Nureyev
and revealing the extraordinary will and curiosity that drove him to dance,
dance, dance.
My own retrospective quest took me back to old dance videos – pale
substitutes for witnessing a live performance. Even so, the charisma, the
sheer burning intensity of Rudolph Nureyev on stage somehow manages to
survive on celluloid. His solo work is perhaps most thrilling because he
can let loose. Athletic, yet a creature of the air, he dazzles in Le Corsaire;
he demonstrates his affinity for incorporating national dance into classical
ballet in Don Quixote; his classical solos from Sleeping Beauty & La
Sylphide are more virtuosic than usual. In Le Jeune Homme et La Mort, he
demonstrates his versatility in dancing the modernist plastique of Roland
Petit's choreography and again in Glen Tetley's Pierrot Lunaire to
Schoenberg's score. Afternoon of a Faun is his bold take on Nijinsky's
signature piece. The clips from Giselle with Fonteyn are breathtaking – he
was always at his artistic best and on his best behavior with her.
And finally, I make my way back to where it all began for me:Romeo and
Juliet. Macmillan's ballet to Prokofiev's haunting score with Nicholas
Georgiadis' stunning d茅cor has not seemed to have aged one single bit in
the sixty years since I first found myself spellbound in the old Met. I am
still mesmerized by David Blair as Mercutio and swept away by Fonteyn's
purity and sheer, sublime, ageless beauty as a dancer. And then there is
Nureyev – then twenty-six years old – portraying the young, impulsive
Romeo. He lacks the lyricism of Donald McLeary and Anthony Sowell in
the role, but he does convey the unbridled passion, ardor, sexiness of the
youth, and in the final pas de deux, when Romeo dances with Juliet's limp
body, he goes for broke, leaving every ounce of emotion and energy on the
table.
And that perhaps was the essence of Nureyev, the artist, and, to some
extent, Nureyev the man. Dance was his god, the theatre his temple. Art
was an all or nothing experience. You felt it in the unstinting energy
poured into every movement and gesture And you saw it, as did Jamie
Wyeth, in the fire in his eyes.
|
