Ballet British Columbia

Today the dancers have their first look at John Murrell’s scenario for the new ballet. Although based on the familiar Tennessee Williams text, Murrell has had to rely on his visual sense to develop the story line without the benefit of explanatory dialogue.

John Murell

“It’s a play that I know extremely well since I’ve had almost a lifelong fascination with Tennessee Williams. I have worked with John [Alleyne] on several ballets now and our process always starts with a long and very thorough discussion about the source text so that I know what interests him about it. If I fail to capture what drives the primary artist, in this case John, it doesn’t matter how well written the scenario is, I have failed.”

Simone Orlando who dances the role of Blanche DuBois and her trunk of finery.

They begin by discussing structure–where is the beginning, middle and end of the story–and what are John’s instinctive impulses about the piece. “I want to get both his conscious and unconscious responses to the story,” Murrell says. “At this point, I try to merge my notes with the original document. Sometimes, as in the case of The Faerie Queen, the process is easy. In that case he was very specific about the characters and the part of the story he wanted to use.

Courtney Richardson who dances the role of Stella with Jones Henry.

“In the case of Streetcar, we developed a kind of shorthand based on our working experience together. He can think blue sky creatively and I take notes. Hopefully I bring that back to him in the first draft. The other thing I try to do—actually the hardest part—is telling the story just with images, movement in space and instrumental music. Even though there may be a synopsis in the programme, you should be able to understand the story without reading about it first. That’s the biggest challenge.

Makaila Wallace who dances the role of Young Blanche and Jones Henry.

“Working with John has been an invigorating experience for me at this stage in my creative life, allowing me to forget about the avalanche of words and simply use the human figure coming into a space and leaving a space and interacting with others to music that is yet to be written.”

John Alleyne demonstrates a movement.

The difficulty of working with this particular play is compounded by its familiarity to audiences worldwide and the archetypal characters Williams created in Blanche, Stella and Stanley. “We all have various associations to this play so I had to chip away at the filter of Vivien Leigh, Jessica Tandy, Marlon Brando and the other great actors who have imagined these roles and free my imagination to get to the basic archetype and what Williams was really after.

“I felt that we had a chance to open up parts of the story that in a spoken play or even a musical version you can’t do. For example, in reading the text there is a powerful relationship between who Blanche has become and who she once was, perhaps one of the most important relationships in the play. We know that she was a very different human being at Belle Reve with her young husband than the damaged woman that is in front of us in New Orleans.”

Makaila Wallace and Jones Henry.

Murrell also thinks that Blanche’s time at the Flamingo Hotel changed her significantly, morphing her into a different woman by the time she arrives at Stella’s apartment. “Because of some of John’s suggestions, I felt there had to be a character named Young Blanche as well as a character called Blanche Dubois that would really allow us to explore something unique.”

Obviously another great advantage to this technique is being able to actually see Alan, the young husband who is only talked about in the play, interact with Blanche. “Somehow being able to do that just through movement without having to characterize Alan and his friend in dialogue leaves it in Blanche’s wonderful and dreadful memory world so that we know we are seeing that world through her eyes. Although it may not be what really happened, it’s something deeper than what really happened, it’s the thing she remembers.”

John Alleyne and Courtney Richardson.

Next time I’ll look at the dancers’ journey from the written page to characterization through movement, and how John Alleyne’s independent, creative mind affects the dances he creates.