Ballet British Columbia

Download the Complete Script (PDF 70Kb)

Many people are surprised to learn that a full-length ballet needs a script or scenario for the choreographer to work from. Dance, like a movie or a play, most often begins with an idea or concept or, in this case, source material that requires a clear dramatic arc that guides the choreographer through the creation process.

For John Alleyne's ballet The Faerie Queen (created in 2000), based on Shakespeare's masterful comedy A Midsummer Night's Dream, John Murrell had to find ways to reduce the complexity of the play and use the major plot points to create a story line that could be told through dance.

The same process was used in developing the scenario for A Streetcar Named Desire. One of Murrell's brilliant ideas in adapting Williams' play for ballet was fleshing out the story of Blanche's past at Belle Reve, including her tragic, short-lived marriage to a young man we assume to be homosexual. Williams' treatment of his controversial subject matter was as explicit as it could be given the moral standards of the time period.

Blanche says, "He was a boy, just a boy, when I was a very young girl. When I was sixteen, I made the discovery--love. All at once and much, much too completely. It was like you suddenly turned a blinding light on something that had always been half in shadow, that's how it struck the world for me."

She goes on. "Then I found out. In the worst of all possible ways. By coming suddenly into a room that I thought was empty--which wasn't empty, but had two people in it...the boy I had married and an older man who had been his friend for years...."

"And then the searchlight which had been turned on the world was turned off again and never for one moment since has there been any light that's stronger than this--kitchen--candle..."

What Murrell and Alleyne do with the ballet script is show us Blanche's past by having characters on stage dancing the roles of young Blanche, her conflicted husband Allan and his lover. The same technique is used later in the ballet with Blanche's experiences at the Hotel Flamingo.

The nature of ballet and its visual quality make this kind of imaginary reading of source material absolutely necessary. Nothing is lost or added to the original story, it is simply seen from a different point-of-view.

When I re-read the play followed immediately by a reading of the ballet script, I had an "aha" moment. Suddenly I understood how adaptable great art can be to interpretation. The script is available on this site. It's definitely worth a look.

Download the Complete Script (PDF 70Kb)