by Leigh Witchel
The Trocks are more than just a comedy company, they are a fortress of balletomania. The troupe’s stock in trade is not only what’s ridiculous and marvelous about ballet, but also what’s overlooked and in danger of being forgotten. The trick is to make those two jobs overlap.
“Valpurgeyeva Noch,” which closed Program A (alas, Program B didn’t get seen – the company had to truncate the season due to coronavirus), was one of the Trocks’ historical efforts, though from more recent history. Elena Kunikova staged the production after Leonid Lavrovsky’s version for the Bolshoi. [Author’s note: I can vouch for the veracity of Kunikova’s staging because I also was in a similar version after the Lavrovsky 31 years ago. I hope the PTSD isn’t showing.]
The ballet contained the elements of a Soviet Bacchanal: Fauns, nymphs, three wafting maidens in draperies, Pan bounding, and a sturdy main couple where the man’s job is to haul his consort about. The staging, like many of the lesser-known productions the Trocks unearth, is half history lesson, half natural preserve for endangered ballets, and that was a noble effort. But those tend to be less sharp in their humor, and less individually memorable.
“Nightcrawlers,” in its New York premiere, is a sequel of sorts to Peter Anastos’ send-up of Robbins’ work to Chopin, “Yes, Virginia, Another Piano Ballet.” This one concentrates on “In the Night,” but it takes aim at “The Concert” as well. Parodies of parodies . . .
The gentlemen wore tails, the ladies silk gowns with an enormous glitter applique at the breast. Robbins’ Chopin ballets focused on complex partnering, and most of the humor here involved that as well. A man dragged his partner across the floor in a duet; what was daring but graceful turned awkward as he persisted in dragging her all across the stage like a parcel that missed its delivery. More parcels: each man slid his partner down, them hoisted her up on his shoulders.
One unfortunate lady was hauled out sideways like luggage with a broken handle. There was parity though; in a pas de deux done to what music Robbins used in “Dances at a Gathering” for the Girl in Green, the man ended exhausted and his partner carried him off.
Unlike “In The Night,” “Nightcrawlers” was not all moonlight and roses. One duet was a a fast polka. Anastos recycled his own joke from “Go for Barocco” of ridiculously knotted formations as dancers curled round one another to form a Rube Goldberg contraption. There was a galop where the men literally galloped. Anastos also inserted the sturm und drang music from the third duet of “In the Night,” followed by the frantic “Hades” Prelude that both Robbins and Anastos used for barely controlled chaos: even Odette from two ballets before ended up making an appearance before everyone lost it and screamed. Anastos has made some of the funniest ballets for the Trocks, but “Nightcrawlers” felt recycled, and not as lethally silly as the best of the company’s repertory.
The Act 1 pas de trois from “Swan Lake” was tossed in as a bonbon, done with a familiar Trocks gag: putting a tiny man, Timur Legupski (Jake Speakman), with two towering ladies, Helen Highwaters (Duane Gosa) and Eugenia Repelski (Joshua Thake). The version is listed as “after Petipa,” which could mean anything. Given the Trocks’ archival skill, it would have been nice to know the provenance; the variations didn’t look familiar. Speakman, who only recently joined the company, is shorter, but not one of the pyrotechnicians the Trocks have shown off previously, who looked as if they did this because they were too short to be in a major company. It all ended with the two ballerinas lifting him under the armpits over their heads.
“Le Lac des Cygnes (Swan Lake, Act II)” is from the top tier of the 19th century repertory, the part that’s moving, has music that is burned into our brains, is rightfully beloved and completely ludicrous. The Trocks had that mix on speed dial, including a long mime conversation between Odette and Siegfried that they didn’t understand much better than we did.
The swans (all eight of them) tottered out on broken pointes. Odette, Nadia Doumiafeyva (Philip Martin-Nielson) was tallish, with honed comic skills. Doumiafeyva is capable enough and trained, with her strongest pointe work in piqué turns and soutenus. In the coda, her arabesques were placed in a beautiful, straight line. She pulled double fouettés off in the coda seemingly out of nowhere.
But she wasn’t trying to be a gender illusionist, and didn’t sacrifice everything to the imitation of a ballerina. She was funny and satiric, with sharp comic timing and a hilariously musical entrance on the harp cadenza where she carefully prepped all her angles. Her best shtick was a bright smile after every potential fiasco. She understood what the Trocks were doing as drag.
Siegfried, Boris Mudko (Giovanni Ravelo), in great Trock tradition, was both physically and mentally slightly thick. His sidekick, Benno, Tino Xirau-Lopez (Alejandro Gonzalez) sported a Carol Channing wig. Von Rothbart, Jacques d’Aniels (Joshua Thake) was skinny with loose joints; a von Rothbart who might have been a mid-60’s villain out the the Batman TV series: KICK! SPIN! With his makeup and wig he looked a bit like the Joker.
Olga Supphozova (Robert Carter), one of the company’s senior artists, who performed that molting signature “The Dying Swan,” was unleashed into the corps of “Swan Lake,” which was a tactical error. Carter, who alone is Grade A comic ham, completely took over the little swans quartet. The burlesque and sight gags were funny, but it’s actually funnier when they do the steps.
The evening closed out on sentimental but appropriate note with a kick line to “New York, New York,” complete with foam liberty crowns. And back handsprings. In the end, as much as the Trocks love ballet, what they love most is entertaining us. And they missed us as much as we missed them.
copyright © 2022 by Leigh Witchel
“Le Lac des Cygnes (Swan Lake, Act II),” “Swan Lake Pas de Trois,” “Nightcrawlers,” “The Dying Swan,” “Valpurgeyeva Noch”– Les Ballets Trockadero de Monte Carlo
The Joyce Theater, New York, NY
December 15, 2021
Cover: Robert Carter in “The Dying Swan.” Photo credit © Steven Pisano.
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