by Leigh Witchel
It was probably impossible for Amar Ramasar’s retirement from New York City Ballet to avoid being a partisan event. His appearances have been marked by a claque in the audience applauding and shouting forcefully, and another group that booed. The group that booed stayed away the final Sunday of the season.
Ramasar’s appearance onstage was brief, his farewell longer, and first there was a masterpiece to watch: Balanchine’s “A Midsummer Night’s Dream.” That has changed over time, even perhaps in some details as a reaction to the scandal Ramasar was caught up in.
Coming out first after the overture, the little bugs entered in full split jetés. Alexa Maxwell was the butterfly, with a sharp and swift jump. Harrison Ball’s Puck was even more staccato, but also clearly acted. He saw Isabella LaFreniere enter as Helena, though she couldn’t see him, invited her to safely pass, and watched her sadness.
Sara Mearns was originally scheduled to dance Titania, but she was sidelined and Unity Phelan performed. She painted her character with a light touch. As she and Daniel Ulbricht as Oberon argued over the changeling boy, he was more a prize or bauble than a child. It was as if the two were squabbling over a necklace or a ring.
One thing that hadn’t changed was the speed of the narrative. Balanchine told the story in lightning. Titania and Oberon’s argument was repeated, only faster, and moved right into the lovers’ distress.
As soon as they entered, there was a small change: The men, Demetrius (Peter Walker) and Lysander (Aaron Sanz) were no longer wearing wigs. Unlike some costumes that are integral to the meaning of a work, these wigs were accessories that, going on six decades later, no longer looked good. No one would miss the wigs in “Firebird” either, least of all the men wearing them.
If there’s a moment in “Midsummer” that speaks to Russell Janzen’s article in the New York Times concerning being a gentleman in roles that seem to call for less than that, it’s the slapstick moment when Demetrius almost kicks Helena during their quarrel.
Walker toned that down, leaving in only a frustrated stamp. He also understood how to make complicated partnering look inattentive and uncaring. This is part of why the concern Janzen expressed in the piece about the pas de deux in “Agon” feels misplaced. Brutality in ballet partnering is acting, not actual cruelty. It’s almost impossible without both mutual consent and careful planning.
The action moved quickly again, to Titania’s bower. Puck attempted to purloin the changeling and got chased off. What did Titania and her Cavalier do afterwards in Balanchine’s lightning-speed version? Resume as if that never happened, natch.
Phelan danced with Chun Wai Chan, who had been promoted to principal a few days prior. Phelan channeled Suzanne Farrell. Her movement was extravagant, with high arcing attitudes and battements that flew up towards her forehead. She was elegant and feminine, as well as wristy, but wristy as if to emphasize that she could break her line and it would still be long.
There will always be something thrilling about the exit Balanchine gave Titania. Her cavalier gently pushes her and she tiptoes into a closing circle of light as if walking on night dew. Even more than the story or the dancing, the magic of Balanchine’s version is the conjuring of the green world of the forest.
There’s no transition; Balanchine moved straight into the scherzo featuring Oberon and the Bugs. Which ought to be a band name. Oberon’s allegro variation was a salvo of beaten jumps straight into placed turns. Ulbricht did a beautiful job of phrasing the enchaînements: from turning jump to turn ending in an open position and repeating across the diagonal.
Again, Balanchine’s speed in narrative: he explained the flower with a quick stage trick – a prop arrow that pierced the flower and turned it red, using our stereotypes of Cupid’s arrow to make the association with falling in love. Ball streaked through jetés to retrieve the blossom.
Ball didn’t see Puck as comic, but that has an inconsistent history. When Puck called Helena to find Lysander, that moment was played for laughs in the ‘80s and the ‘90s. There’s a film on Youtube of Jean-Pierre Frohlich in a 1986 telecast gesturing frantically “HERE!” to Stephanie Saland, who kept missing.
But in the 1967 film Arthur Mitchell and Mimi Paul played that moment straight, drawing Helena to Lysander without any slapstick. That could be a change, or it could be what played better in a film that wasn’t tied to a proscenium staging. Ball did a hybrid of Mitchell’s magic and Frohlich’s frustration: he didn’t break character, but called to LaFreniere bigger and more urgently. He wasn’t mugging; his comedy was physical.
There is another slapstick kick by Oberon after Puck botched his assignment. In ‘67 Villella did a slow boil that exploded in a swift kick. In ‘86, Ib Andersen thwacked Frohlich hard. Ulbricht kicked Ball, but made much less of the moment. Maybe that was this specific performance; maybe that’s one sign of the times.
No matter what, Balanchine’s staging of the lovers’ predicament, with all four rejecting a suitor in turn, is a sight gag that will never grow old. The four identical “phooey!” gestures are a classic lesson on how to tell a story quickly through physical comedy.
Walker put detail into his work; even how he woke up after being doused with the flower. His hand moved first, curling, then the rest of him. Once Demetrius dismissed Lysander as an also-ran for Helena’s affections, Sanz’ reaction was lighter, brandishing his sword as a comic move more than an aggressive one. Ashley Laracey’s solo as Hermia, in a darkening forest, was taken at a clip. Her distress had to be in its sharpness; there was no time to emote.
Titania’s reaction to Bottom also varies from woman to woman, from comic to downplayed. Phelan found an interesting approach; she looked at Gilbert Bolden III as if he were the cutest puppy ever. Bolden backed away slightly as she rushed towards him, uncertain what she was trying to do. He made the comedy register through the shapes of his body, even with a full, immobile donkey’s head.
Puck put things right in the confusion and obscurity of the hounds and fog: he’s the only one on stage at that moment who can see everything. Emily Kikta danced Hippolyta extravagantly as well, with a full measure of fouettés done interestingly through the music and a clean landing.
Because Phelan never acted as if she were sexually attracted to Bottom, when Ulbricht removed the effects of the bloom, she wasn’t embarrassed. She handed Oberon the changeling boy and took her deception in good humor as if it were an April Fool’s prank. She and Oberon walked off congenially together.
If the interpretation of the ballet reminded us of anything, it was that change over time isn’t just deterioration, but also a reaction to what’s happening around us. Think of ballets that have moments now seen as potentially violent: “Rubies” or “Fancy Free.” Whether it’s interpreted onstage as a violation doesn’t depend only on the act, but the reaction.
The second act was capped by Ramasar’s farewell, an event that was colored by each person’s perception of him, and their belief in his culpability or innocence in the photo sharing scandal that happened in 2018. But even without the backstory, it was an odd sendoff.
Ramasar had danced most of the season, and was a cornerstone of casting amidst all the other injuries, but it caught up with him by the end. He was coping with a minor knee injury, but it was serious enough to have Andrew Veyette do the entree of the second act divertissement with Sterling Hyltin, who looked slightly (and understandably) thrown in the unsupported turns she did.
Veyette ended with a clean multiple turn before exiting and Hyltin reentered with Ramasar to do the pas de deux. He partnered Hyltin in tender balances and gentle bourrées, but the last soap-bubble balance where she transferred from his one hand to the other, maintaining an equilibrium before falling into his waiting arm, looked labored. His strength had likely been impacted by his injury. In the short entry for the coda he changed the brief solo (usually turns and beats) to an en dedans pirouette.
Even uninjured, Ramasar’s best roles slant towards Broadway or contemporary. He is a vivid actor and a strong dancer, but not a classicist. This part showed off his partnering skills, but not the rest of where he excels. A more appropriate farewell might have been a few weeks before during the Stravinsky Festival in “Agon” or “Firebird.”
And then, after about 10 minutes of dancing came a curtain call that easily exceeded that in length. It was full dress, but quickly went unorthodox. Ramasar started by going to the lip of the stage and out into the house, hugging Peter Martins. As the procession of well-wishers came onstage, mentally there was a division between who was there and who was not.
Company director Jonathan Stafford came out first, with a massive bouquet, which felt as much like a strategic move as genuine sentiment. Alexei Ratmansky showed, so did Zachary Catazaro, who with Ramasar was also dismissed by the company and later reinstated by an arbitration decision that the suspension was justified, but not the dismissal, because the action was not done on company time.
Ramasar looked genuinely touched, unlike the rest of the season, there wasn’t a duel between the people who roared when he appeared and those who booed. It was his day, and his career onstage entitled him to it. His offstage history though, and the partisan divisions it inspired, made that curtain call feel uncomfortably situated between an attempt at reconciliation and an attempt at gaslighting.
copyright © 2022 by Leigh Witchel
“A Midsummer Night’s Dream” – New York City Ballet
Lincoln Center, New York, NY
May 29, 2022
Cover: Amar Ramasar takes his final bows at New York City Ballet. Photo credit © Erin Baiano.
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