REVIEW: A sumptuous feast of British ballet

The menu was British, but this was hardly “meat and two veg.”

The “Right Royal Affair” program the Sarasota Ballet debuted Friday night at the FSU Center for the Performing Arts was a varied repast that included three works drawn from the British tradition that Artistic Director Iain Webb and his wife, Margaret Barbieri – both former dancers with the Royal Ballet – are steeped in. With only a few exceptions, it attested to the growing maturity and ability of this company of mostly very young dancers.

"The Rake's Progress"

The evening began with Sir Frederick Ashton’s “Les Rendezvous,” an early work by the renowned British choreographer depicting a group of young people as they meet, flirt and part by the gates of a park. The company had to create its own costumes for this little-performed work and costumier Bill Fenner’s efforts were lovely – classic, clean and elegantly simple.

The deceptively demanding choreography, which requires such speed and precision in its bursts of petite allegro it would be easy to slip into frenzy, was admirably managed. But the dancers’ excellent technique was hampered by a tension that settled in their frozen smiles and rigid neck muscles and detracted from what was meant to be a light-hearted romp.

Ashton is not everyone’s British cup of tea anyway. But could anyone resist the allure of Ninette de Valois’ “The Rake’s Progress”? Those familiar with the prints of artist William Hogarth, upon which the ballet is based, saw both his canvases and the narrative – about a ne’er do well young heir who falls into vice and self-destruction – leap to life.

It was hard to imagine these were the same dancers who seemed vaguely uncomfortable with the mime and acting of “Anne Frank” in the season’s opener last fall. Their thespian gifts were, across the board, so emotionally effective it’s hard not to cite the entire cast.

But certainly Octavio Martin, in the lead role, deserves whatever is the dancer’s equivalent of an Oscar. He had me crying twice – once with laughter, watching him as a google-eyed lech in a hilarious, bawdy, drunken scene, surrounded by panty-flashing maidens, and later, with a heart-wrenching, twitching portrayal of descent into madness.

“The Grand Tour,” was an authentic picture of life on a holiday cruise ship in the ‘30s, with a cast of characters from Gertrude Lawrence to Gertrude Stein. (Well, mostly authentic. The deck chairs should have been teak rather than aluminum, but who’s quibbling?)

In costumes borrowed from the Birmingham Royal Ballet – Logan Learned, as an adorable stowaway paired with Sara Sardelli, was wearing the very same outfit Webb had worn in his performing days – and to divine music by Noel Coward, they appropriately hammed up the Broadway-influenced choreography by Joe Layton.

Every portrait was winning – Victoria Hulland’s soigné flapper; Danielle Brown’s vampy Theda Bara; Ricardo Graziano’s preening Douglas Fairbanks; Miguel Piquer (in drag) as a mannish Gertrude Stein and Kate Honea, as a ditzy Mary Pickford. Amy Wood, a befuddled American tourist and Ricardo Rhodes, the well- mannered chief steward who charms her, both got their roles exactly right.

Barbieri, who meticulously staged all three ballets with only a month’s worth of rehearsals is to be most commended. The booby prize, on the other hand, goes to the two 20-minute intermissions – both of which stretched to nearly a half hour – which made a very rich evening of sumptuous dance overly stuffed.

DANCE REVIEW

“A Right Royal Affair,” reviewed Feb. 4 at the FSU Center for the Performing Arts. Additional performances Sat. Feb. 5 at 2 and 8 p.m. and Sun. Feb. 6 at 2 and 7 p.m. For tickets, call 359-0099, ext. 101 or go to www.sarasotaballet.org.