Dance
The Australian Ballet’s Oscar – an enactment of Oscar Wilde’s life and loves – foregrounds queer desire in a tour de force. By Leila Lois.
The Australian Ballet’s Oscar is Wilde at heart
Dance, Oscar Wilde once said, was “a vertical expression of a horizontal urge”. This is perfectly illustrated by British choreographer Christopher Wheeldon’s new work for The Australian Ballet.
Oscar, which premiered at Melbourne’s Regent Theatre before a season in Sydney later this year, seethes with desire. It represents an important moment in ballet, as a dance in which queer narratives are foregrounded in a mainstream production.
Since the sea-change moment of the global pandemic, a groundswell of dancers and choreographers have been advocating a #QueerTheBallet movement, co-founded by former Miami City Ballet dancers Adriana Pierce and Patricia Delgado. There have been few representations of queer relationships in ballet since Matthew Bourne’s groundbreaking Swan Lake in 1995, but recently choreographers such as Pierce, Loughlan Prior and Wheeldon are bringing this aspect into the limelight.
Oscar is the first performance in The Australian Ballet’s program at its new residency at the Regent Theatre while the State Theatre at Arts Centre Melbourne, its usual performance space, is renovated. Temporary stages have a reputation for being subpar locations for ballet. Oscar’s production team raised the stage to allow better sightlines, but there are still some visibility issues that detract from fully appreciating the ballet and the dancers, as Wheeldon’s choreography often displays precise footwork and moving floorwork.
The delightful interior of the theatre, a historic former picture palace, does add an immersive charm to a ballet based on the life of a famous aesthete. Orchestra Victoria, conducted expertly by Jonathan Lo, gives full expression to Joby Talbot’s score and is in view for the entire performance.
The ballet follows Wilde’s life from his early celebrity to his incarceration in Reading Gaol and descent into ill health and madness, before his early death at 46. Seán O’Shea’s unobtrusive narration is helpful to those audience members who might be unfamiliar with the details of Wilde’s life. A close reading of the synopsis in the program is recommended before viewing, as the action moves fast and the blending of Wilde’s stories with his biography is at times intricate.
In each act, Wilde reminisces from prison after the disastrous court case that destroyed his life. Excerpts from his fictional writing act as a poetic mirror to the biographical story. This creative layering prompts audiences to consider what role Wilde’s writings played in his struggles with his identity against a backdrop of conservative social mores, the public exposure of which led to his incarceration and disgrace. His fictional works, Wheeldon suggests, are a conduit for his feelings of entrapment and shame. This raises interesting questions about the porousness of the artist in relation to their works.
Oscar explores the intense male relationships within Wilde’s life and features some of the most touching male duets I’ve witnessed. A pas de deux in Act 2, between Oscar (danced by Callum Linnane) and Lord Alfred “Bosie” Douglas (Benjamin Garrett), is sensational. The characterisation and dramaturgy in the choreography shines through both dancers, as the relationship builds from furtive looks and touches to being fully embroiled in a “forbidden love”.
They fall into each other with abandon, collide and passionately embrace. In moments they are matching, vibrationally similar forces, rather than the complementary energies we are so used to seeing in male–female pas de deux, where the male dancer lifts the female and holds her for her allegro. The physical parity of the two dancers accentuates this simpatico alignment and is thrilling to witness.
In an especially beautiful moment, Linnane lifts Garrett, as both of them hold on to each other at the pelvis. Garrett is upside down, emulating the disorienting beauty of infatuation. Linnane looks enraptured as they embrace, with seeming effortlessness, in this complex lift. The gorgeous cuts of their cloth breeches and autumnal-coloured brocade jackets (designed by Jean-Marc Puissant) glow in the golden stage lighting (Mark Henderson). These moments are reminiscent of the breathless feeling when two people become obsessed with each other, at once falling and suspended. But this feels more like limerence than love, and Garrett as the manipulative Bosie embodies a sense of superiority and detachment.
The first act showcases Wilde’s short story “The Nightingale and the Rose”, the bird spiritedly danced by Ako Kondo and wordlessly sung by Victoria Lambourn. In this tale, the nightingale sacrifices her life to create a red rose for a young student’s unrequited love, only for the student to carelessly throw the rose away when the woman rejects him.
Wheeldon explores Wilde’s time in London with his wife, Constance (danced confidently by Sharni Spencer), and young sons. Journalist Robbie Ross (Joseph Caley) enters stage right to throw Wilde’s private life into turmoil. There are many notable performances in this act, but Benedicte Bemet in particular sparkles as Sarah Bernhardt, a role she seems born for with her natural star quality.
The intensity of the pas de deux pieces are balanced with the vibrant ensemble pieces, the corps de ballet dancing roles from a flock of birds to epicurean partygoers. There are also striking pas de trois, such as when Linnane and Caley dance with erotic frisson when Spencer’s back is turned, creating maximal dramatic tension. Constance is unaware at first of Wilde’s ensuing immersion in the decadent world of secret homoerotic liaisons. Spencer dances the character with complexity and grace, her smooth allongement becoming increasingly troubled by scandal and doubt.
Wilde’s novella turned novel, The Picture of Dorian Gray, a story remarkable for its time as a coded narrative of queer love, propels the drama of the second act. The darker aspects of Victorian London, from rent boys to opium dens, are vividly evoked by the mise en scène through Puissant’s set and costuming. The drag performers Zella and Harri, performed by Cameron Holmes and Marcus Morelli, are pure theatrical excellence and encapsulate the bohemian energy of the Victorian demimonde.
Wheeldon weaves fact and fiction masterfully together. This work will surely deepen in significance and interpretation over time. As a moment in ballet history, Oscar is a tour de force. Perhaps most centrally, it asks where the artist ends and the art begins. It’s a long time since the age of Victorian moral anxiety, yet we still exist in a world that’s both intrigued by and judgemental of the private experiences of artists, their complex inner worlds and their most human motives.
Oscar is playing at the Regent Theatre, Melbourne, until September 24, and the Sydney Opera House, November 8-23.
This article was first published in the print edition of The Saturday Paper on September 21, 2024 as "Wilde at heart".
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