Nevada Ballet Theatre closes season with ‘Romeo and Juliet’
You never forget your first love.
So it’s understandable that James Canfield, Nevada Ballet Theatre’s artistic director, has a soft spot in his heart for “Romeo and Juliet.”
The ballet, inspired by William Shakespeare’s tragedy of star-crossed lovers, concludes NBT’s inaugural Smith Center season this weekend.
Except for “The Nutcracker” (which NBT danced last December), “Romeo and Juliet” was Canfield’s first full-length ballet, choreographed for Portland’s Oregon Ballet Theatre almost 25 years ago.
He’s tweaked it a bit since then, bringing it “more up-to-date” in 2000, but it retains its essence, which Canfield describes as “unconventional but traditional.”
NBT last performed “Romeo and Juliet” in 2005, featuring choreography by Canfield’s predecessor, Bruce Steivel .
It’s the same score — one of Russian composer Sergei Prokofiev’s most renowned — but “I just put my little theatrical touch on it,” Canfield says.
“Tradition is the score and the story,” he explains, adding that, “Romeo and Juliet,” along with “Hamlet,” ranks as his favorite Shakespeare play.
The challenge, however, involves finding a way to translate Shakespeare’s soaring poetry — and searing emotion — into poetry in motion.
At least Canfield knows the territory.
That’s because, before he choreographed “Romeo and Juliet,” he danced it. (In the Joffrey Ballet’s 1985 production, choreographed by John Cranko , Canfield won raves from New York Times critic Anna Kisselgoff , who described his Romeo as “magnificently danced at every moment” and “the production’s most persuasive character. He gives us a Romeo all too ready for love.”)
Canfield’s choreographic solution to the ballet’s poetry-versus-poetry-in-motion conundrum: Add poetry to the motion.
As Prokofiev’s overture sets the musical stage, Canfield lines up his dramatis personae onstage, introducing the characters as Shakespeare does at the beginning of the play.
Also, a narrator sets the stage with Shakespeare’s own opening lines: “Two households, both alike in dignity, in fair Verona, where we lay our scene.”
Although “alike in dignity,” the feuding Montague and Capulet families remain far apart — even after Romeo (danced by Grigori Arakelyan ) and Juliet (danced by Sarah Fuhrman and Mary LaCroix ) find each other, Juliet reasoning “What’s in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet.”
From the fiery Tybalt (Steven Goforth ), Juliet’s combative cousin, to Romeo’s mad pal Mercutio ( Braeden Barnes), who’s forever mocking Tybalt, the ballet’s other characters support rather than distract “from the Romeo and Juliet love story,” Canfield says.
Likening the setup to “a play within a play,” the introductions at the ballet’s start enable the audience to identify and follow the characters — at least until Prokofiev’s score kicks in.
The composer “created themes that identify the characters, or the power of what was going on — and brilliantly,” he says. “From a dance standpoint — to me, that’s the ultimate.”
And while the story, and the customs it depicts, are set in Renaissance Italy, the emotion and issues explored — from teen suicide to bullying — remain contemporary and timeless.
“It’s not ‘Nutcracker,’ where it’s a fantasy,” Canfield says. “These are real people.”
Real people living at a time where “people, like today, killed people,” he adds, “whether it’s the Jets and the Sharks” — the gangs in the musical “West Side Story,” a 20th-century “Romeo and Juliet” retelling — “or the Crips and the Bloods.”
As for the star-crossed lovers caught in the middle, “the naivete of these two dreamers” sets the stage for inevitable tragedy, Canfield says. “It’s an emotional roller-coaster ride, through the music and the portrayals.”
Contact reporter Carol Cling at ccling@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0272.