Theatre Royal, Glasgow, 11 April 2012, and touring

CALLING in Nancy Meckler to create a ballet version of Tennessee Williams’ tragic masterpiece was a risk for Ashley Page and Scottish Ballet; though she has an international reputation for theatre grounded in movement, Meckler had never made a ballet before.

PILING on the risk, this was the first full length ballet for choreographer Annabelle Lopez Ochoa, composer Peter Salem, and designer Niki Turner. So, no pressure, then on the opening night in Glasgow….

As the stage gradually brightened to reveal Eve Mutso’s Blanche and her hopeless, moth-like fluttering toward the light, it was already evident that Page had dared and won.

Eve Mutso as Blanche and Erik Cavallari in A Streetcar Named Desire. Photograph by Andrew Ross

A straight narrative in chronological order (“there is no past tense in dance”) was skilfully overlaid throughout by the chorus crossing and re-crossing the stage dressed as one or other of the leads. Their movements foreshadowed the future or recalled the past the way a composer repeats a theme in a different key or tempo to intensify the effect.

Turner’s design, beautifully economical, also used and reused motifs – packing cases, bare light bulbs, red roses – as it conjured both the dying grandeur of the deep South and the crowded vibrancy of New Orleans. Her costumes were deceptively simple, frequently desirable – both the ballgowns and the bowling alley dresses – and the use of key colours, gradually darkening and deepening, was masterful, especially in the increasingly ominous flower sellers with their blood-red roses.

Salem’s music and soundscape were equally well matched with the leitmotif of “It’s Only A Paper Moon” becoming at the end as torn and tragic as Blanche herself.

Perhaps it’s not such a big leap from physical theatre to ballet – Meckler and Ochoa worked well as a team, handling the story with a strong, sure touch, making explicit much which is hinted at in the book, bringing out the dancers’ acting skills and integrating them seamlessly with their dancing. There were moments of pure brilliance – the decline of the Dubois family, the bowling alley, the cinema trip – in which Meckler’s signature could perhaps be discerned. Ochoa tipped her choreographic hat to Gene Kelly and Jerome Robbins in some light ensemble routines but did not flinch from the earthiness and darkness the story also requires.

The three principal performers – Mutso, Tama Barry (Stanley Kowalski) and Sophie Martin (Stella Kowalski) – did not flinch, either, and the Theatre Royal often seemed to be holding its collective breath, so intense was the effect.

It must be admitted that there were some longeurs in the second Act, and even the first Act, performed to a hushed, rapt audience, needed some very minor tightening up; but no first night is free of imperfections. Without risk, there’s no reward; Page’s risk has paid off with a stunning addition to Scottish Ballet’s repertoire.

© Jennie Macfie, 2012

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• Scottish Ballet
• Jennie Macfie