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| Excerpts from: Matthew Bourne and His Adventures in Motion Pictures This book is done in interview style with Alastair Macaulay (AM) in conversation with Matthew Bourne (MB). ~ Swan Lake ~ The following bits and pieces taken from Matthew's book might give you better insight into Act Three. This corresponds with the screen caps in Part Eight of the storyboard. MB: A lot (of it) fell into place once I'd fixed the central idea, which is that - yes, it is a Royal Ball; yes, the Prince is expected to pay his respects to these various women or pincesses, though his heart is elsewhere. Then the Stranger arrives and attracts everybody: the Queen, the Prince, everybody. Originally, you see, I thought of the Stranger, or Black Swan, as the Private Secretary's son; and Act Three is where the Private Secretary's plot became more apparent. He wanted to discredit the Prince and to marry his own son off to the Queen. AM: So was it clear, early on in your conception, that you were going to go in and out of reality? In and out of the Prince's mind? It seems to come out of the extraordinary changes in the music. But it's also helped by exceptional changes of lighting. Was that easy to achieve? MB: The lighting was not a problem. I did say to Rick Fisher, our lighting designer, that we would need a dramatic snap change of light to make it at least somewhat clear to the audience that we'd gone somewhere else. But there are still people who don't see that and who think it's reality. However, we know what we're trying to do! It all came out of the music. Nobody has really picked up on the fact that the music is different - and more authentic. The first section happens in reality. It's for the Queen and the Stranger. I knew it wouldn't be a problem to do in rehearsal and it certainly wasn't. I'm sure we did it in about an hour or so, very quickly. But when the first part of the music changes into its second section, that's when suddenly we switch into the Prince's mind. What I tried here - a filmic device - is to make the Prince put himself in the Queen's place. This dance is for two men alone together, and it's where the music is suddenly at its most Black Swannish. I had a problem in my mind for a while about exactly what to do in the part. Then I saw one of the Argentinean tango shows that came to London: Tango Argentino or Forever Tango - it's all the same and it's all wonderful - where two men were dancing together. I thought their style of movement would work very well: that sort of dark intertwining of bodies. You've got a formal partnering style built in, which says something straight-away; and it allowed for us to develop something that got more violent and antagonistic between them after a simple start. There are two points where the music is really interesting and helpful. The first is at the end of an adagio section, in our version just as the stranger leaves the Prince. The music continues - in the traditional ballet there's a dramatic break for applause - here into a kind of sarcastic rendition of the Swan music. It builds up; it has a definite edge that we tried to pick up on. For us, it's the business of taunting the Prince. It's a paranoia situation. It's just as the Stranger leaves the Prince; he walks out as everbody else walks in, all staring at the Prince, and the Prince acts as though the Stranger's still there. So it's as if it's going on in his mind, with his arm locked behind his back. He turns round and they're all looking at him, mockingly. He's been acting strangely; and they continue to look at, stare and talk about him. His paranoia grows; and we're playing with what's reality and what isn't, and how much is in his mind and how much isn't. The second is the fantastic violin solo that follows. In the ballet, it's all reorchestrated, and you don't get the incredible ending at all. In our version, they all laugh on stage there, and that came out of the amazing violin solo music that races over the orchestra. The company calls this the Sarcastic Dance; it's to do with taunting the Prince. Then the Stranger re-enters with the Queen. Now, this situation is partly where we've left reality again, with the Prince's exaggerated view of his mother, the Queen, with the Stranger; but they probably are there together in reality too: we see that heightened through his eyes to the point where they are flaunting their affection for each other at him. It's a great piece of music , and yet it's generally not used. As that long piece of music finally ends, the Prince runs out. There again we go into a very snap change of lighting, back into reality with the Stranger downstage watching the Queen and princesses dance for him. We're back to the ball there; and this dance carries musically straight on into the coda (including the music usually associated with the ballerina's thirty-two fouette turns on pointe), which we call the Competition Dance. This is a sort of male-female competitive affair: a West Side Story type of dance. Anything you can do, I can do better - that idea. Then the dramtic denouement, in which the Prince goes hysterical and tries to fire a gun. Some of the details here took a while to fall into place, but the general gist fell into place in my mind out of the story so far and the music. |