“Think Shakespeare? Think again,” says the Joffrey’s Ballet advertising campaign for the North American premiere of Alexander Ekman’s “Midsummer Night’s Dream,” the final home engagement of the company’s 62nd season. That’s cute, you might be thinking, but which dancer is playing Puck?
No, seriously, think again.
This full-length ballet, originally created for the Royal Swedish Ballet in 2015, shares nothing but a name with the Bard’s tale or its balletic counterpart created by George Balanchine in 1962. Instead, Ekman envisions a modern-day setting and a raucous Scandinavian solstice celebration.
As audiences enter the Auditorium Theatre, they find Temur Suluashvili on stage, apparently asleep in a twin-sized bed, his feet dangling toward us through the too-short footboard. The ceiling of the theater is dressed with green light; two strings of fashionable twinkle lights frame the stage; there are sounds of birds chirping and it feels intentionally warm — I could even swear I smelled the musky haze of summer permeating through the house. Meanwhile, a series of phrases are projected on the main curtain: “A dance?” “I lost my shoe.” “Pass the meatballs.” “A song? In Swedish?” and “A roll in the hay?” are a few of these.
All of this is a prelude for the ballet’s magnificent opening. An alarm clock sounds, a chipper Victoria Jaiani enters, humming, carrying clothes for her real-life husband. She pulls up the bed covers as Suluashvili dresses. The main curtain rises to a party already in progress. The entire stage is filled with hay, with nearly 40 dancers on their knees, hay in hand, thrashing the golden strands from side to side and in circular patterns over their heads. The date, according to a digital time clock hung about the stage, is 20 June 2018, but the setting feels antiquated by the cast’s muted, knee-length dresses, or trousers and dress shirts (by Bregje van Balen). A blazing sun built from about a dozen Par cans hung together in an orb (designed by Linus Fellbom) casts a warm glow over the dancers’ bodies — the exhausting harvest ends with them lounging in the straw, melting onto their backs and basking in the morning light.
A quick thunderstorm spoils the party for most, but dancers Jeraldine Mendoza and Greig Matthews use the open stage for a playful duet – lovers dancing in the rain to Mikael Karlsson’s score, played live by members of the Chicago Philharmonic. Joining them, Swedish indie rock star Anna Von Hausswolff looks to float across the stage, her voice much, much bigger than her petite frame.
The clock reads four hours later, and the “sun” shifts to center stage. The solstice celebration is in high gear, complete with a Maypole dance, lawn chairs for tanning, and Fernando Duarte smoking a cigar while tending a Weber grill. It is here that Ekman’s comedic wit begins to show, including a long section which has the whole cast standing downstage, toasting us as they swish gritty, imaginary swill (presumably lingonberry wine), between their teeth. The debauchery grows as the alcohol flows, finding the group in a drunken stupor at the end of a banquet-style meal, some paired off as lovers, others dragged away, pants-less, by their shirts. Suluashvili stumbles back to his bed as the curtain falls on Act 1.
The second half turns the clock back one day; it’s the manifestation of Suluashvili’s nightmare which revels in the truly weird. Two headless men, a half-naked Duarte in a chef’s hat and pointe shoes, and Derrick Agnoletti suspended 30 feet above the stage, hanging from the raised banquet table draped with lifelike dummies — these are just the ordinary parts of this ballet. Ekman’s imagination runs wild here, somehow made possible by his relatively small design team and fully embraced by the Joffrey Ballet’s dancers (and the Auditorium’s excellent flymen, who are on full display if you’re seated anywhere to the right of center).
It’s simply marvelous, and at times, laugh-out-loud funny, but for those of us who’ve been following Ekman, or at least the works of his which have been shown in Chicago, the last half hour of “Midsummer Night’s Dream” feels like more of the same. Elements from Ekman’s two original works for the Joffrey, “Episode 31” and “Joy,” which premiered just last season, reappear here: there’s a section of nearly-naked, hair down, coquettish pointe shoe dancing from the company’s women, and Hansol Jeong standing at the front of a smooshed pack of still naked dancers, who gaze, mystified, at the audience and each other. We saw that in “Joy.” At the height of his dream, Suluashvili walks the perimeter of the stage, slowly and methodically. One of the headless men carries a sign reading “THEATER DREAM” as he and Jaiani mock a classical pas de deux. We saw these things in “Episode 31,” and “Tulle,” which the Joffrey inherited in 2015.
When judged against the rest of the field, Ekman’s innovation and creativity are an 11 out of 10. But against himself, he appears to fall into patterns. Don’t get me wrong, it all works; “Midsummer Night’s Dream” is undeniably a masterpiece. But the second half of the second act employs tropes that neither contribute something wholly new nor serve the plot. For those of us who are following along, that feels like a missed opportunity.
Lauren Warnecke is a freelance critic.
ctc-arts@chicagotribune.com
Joffrey Ballet presents “Midsummer Night’s Dream” (4 stars)
When: Through May 6
Where: Auditorium Theatre, 50 E. Congress Pkwy.
Running time: 2 hours, 25 minutes
Tickets: $34-$177 at 312-386-8905 and www.joffrey.org.
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