by Leigh Witchel
Was childhood ever this psychedelic? “Whipped Cream” came back for a visit in all its lysergic glory, and Alexei Ratmansky’s celebration of carefree indulgence to Richard Strauss’ score was as technicolor as ever. In a late casting switcheroo, Daniil Simkin got to revisit the part he originated.
“Whipped Cream” opens at the end of a communion festival at a church with a priest who has, like other adult authority figures in the ballet, an enormous hydrocephalic head. Though there are some actual kids in the ballet, adult dancers play the main children, with Simkin leading as the Boy, who never gets a name. The men wore shorts, which infantilized them, and everyone acted their best exaggeration of a kid let loose in a candy shop after being good in church, grabbing sweets, rubbing their bellies.
The part fits both Simkin’s still-youthful looks and his comic gifts. After eating too much, he lay down on the ground, in paroxysms and was a full-on cartoon character. “I’M DYING HERE.” He was taken off to the hospital, but we stayed in the sweet shop, for one divertissement after another with zero plot.
All emerging from an enormous candy tin, men danced as various confectionery soldiers in the first of several packed and busy divertissements: a marzipan infantry doing frantic batterie, then sugarplum spear men, and gingerbread soldiers with maces
Princess Tea Flower, with four leafy attendants, emerged from a tea canister on the store counter. Ratmansky has an unrealistic view of royalty, but an unusual one: he sees them as goofy, sheltered innocents, as if the privilege was to stay a child your whole life, but one completely free of responsibility.
Devon Teuscher’s solo had her shaking and tapping, clapping and pointing, as if she was having the best time ever. She ended with a “tada!” flourish and jokingly did a reverence to her corps, as if manners and etiquette were the height of artifice.
Of course tea needed coffee. Cory Stearns appeared from his canister wearing a gold cape. Which he immediately took off, natch. Along with societal etiquette, Ratmansky sent up ballet conventions as well. She balanced in arabesque, he worshipped her, she kicked him with her pointe shoe.
There was plenty more activity. First the tea leaves danced behind, then coffee’s male attendants. Often three of Tea Flower’s quartet would dance while one reclined. It was a long divertissement that had so much going on that it could be difficult to just relax and enjoy it as a dance. Yet it wasn’t much of a pas d’action either. It was just like the ballet. Stuffed.
Without any let up, we were tossed right into more dances. Eric Tamm and Sung Woo Han made their debuts; Tamm as Prince Cocoa, who looked like a Spanish grandee. The variation was packed and aerial; on his first outing Tamm was having trouble with making it look like more than hard tricks.
Han, as Don Zucchero, wore a smock that made him look like a puff ball, and acted like a Pierrot, slumping between jetés, doing deliberately sloppy rivoltades, then grabbing his foot in front attitude. Finally, they all vanished down into their respective canisters.
Divertissements by nature can seem pointless, particularly when first staged. It’s often time and performance that connects them thematically to their ballets. Let’s hope that happens here sooner rather than later.
Pretty much everyone has joked about how the whipped cream corps costumes, with little tipped hoods, look like condoms. But this is also when you start to give in and get beguiled by the craziness of both Ratmansky and designer Mark Ryden. The condoms slid down a ramp out of a bowl. Literally slid. On their butts, as in a playground.
They waltzed. As one does. Even though it was just as crazy or crazier as the earlier waltz of kitchen staples, it made more sense as a divertissement because it made more sense as a design. Ratmansky approached the dance as the big Act 1 corps number. For all its nuttiness, he arranged his 16 condomettes in a neat four by four square or two lines of eight exchanging places as he whipped them into stiff peaks. I promise to stop now.
Moving on to Act 2. Though “Whipped Cream” relies on both the choreography and designs, on balance, Act 1 is Ratmansky’s show. After intermission, Ryden’s designs take over, and they’re fabulous and insane.
Ryden’s craziness seemed to focus Ratmansky’s. The act opened with Simkin lying in a hospital room with an enormous eye watching him, a hydrocephalic doctor, and a corps of nurses with enormous syringes. The doctor left, and in came actual kids dressed as candies in zany puffball outfits.
Enter Princess Praline, Breanne Granlund in her debut, in the midst of a hallucinatory procession. She was riding a fun fur yak. Ratmansky had the good sense to step back and do nothing with these technicolor apparitions but let them parade around the stage. That was more than enough for an ovation.
Like Tea Flower, Ratmansky saw Princess Praline as zany. Her mime to the Boy: “I am a princess! Dance with me!” She quickly fell in love with him even though he almost blew her double air toss. Granlund stayed animated, cheerful and funny through it all, stealing a kiss at the very end of her dance.
She asked him to dance for her, and he did exactly what you’d expect Simkin to do if he was asked to dance: one of his jumpy-jump solos with a scorching manège to end. Granlund did an allegro of bright pointe work, and off she went atop the yak.
The doctor returned. His calmly malicious persona was that of the Mad Scientist from Bugs Bunny cartoons, only with more alcohol. Sure enough, here came the spirits. The two male hard liquors, vodka and slivovitz, fought over the fair chartreuse until she suggested they all dance together.
The doctor came back wanting to dose his patient, but found Simkin had escaped, and dragged him back. He was rescued by reckless drinking. The spirits returned; the doctor succumbed first, then the nurses. The spirits removed Simkin’s hospital smock; he was wearing his communion outfit underneath. Except it had magically become golden, and he was whisked to the kingdom of Princess Praline. It was a lot like Toon Town in “Who Framed Roger Rabbit?” because ALL THE LIGHTS WENT ON ON ON AND EVERYTHING WAS GOLD GOLD GOLD!!!1!!!
All the Boy’s friends and condiments were there and he danced a pas de quatre with Praline, Coffee and Tea Flower.
From here, it was just dancing, insane amounts of dancing, at times wonderful, at others exhausting.
In came the condoms!
There they went!
The cookie soldiers from Act 1 did a galop. Coffee and Tea had a duet, then a trio for Coffee, Sugar and Cocoa. Behind them, the ensemble was dancing. There was so much going on. And another duet for Princess Praline and the Boy.
The chef from the Act 1 sweet shop appeared and gestured to Simkin with his whisk. “EAT MORE!” Simkin’s funniest moment was when he stuck his whole damn head in the mixing bowl. “PLEASE FEED ME SIR.” Ratmansky delivered a love-letter to gluttony.
Everyone danced!
SPIRITS!
CONDOMS!
COOKIES!
Finally there were a gajillionzillion dancers onstage, so many that that the only steps they could do in the finale were tightly under themselves. But they cleared enough for Simkin to power through a solo of crazy big steps, including turns ending with his leg extended to the side and a no-handed aerial flip.
Everyone tossed him in the air. An elder dressed as an enormous pointy confection came in with a crown, and in Ratmansky’s most irreverent comment about rank, Simkin grabbed the crown, ascended a platform with Princess Praline and crowned himself.
After five years, “Whipped Cream” is still fun, still tiring, and still bananas. I’m not sure whether you’ll need a Xanax or a Tums.
copyright © 2022 by Leigh Witchel
“Whipped Cream” – American Ballet Theatre
Lincoln Center, New York, NY
October 21, 2022
Cover: American Ballet Theatre in “Whipped Cream.” Photo credit © Kyle Froman.
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