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      ‘Bridgerton’s’ Approach to Race and Casting Has Precedent Onstage

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      AdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyCritic’s Notebook‘Bridgerton’s’ Approach to Race and Casting Has Precedent OnstageThere’s been much discussion about the presence of Black actors in Regency England on the Netflix show, but performers of color have been playing historical roles in London theaters for decades.Golda Rosheuvel as Queen Charlotte in the Netflix series “Bridgerton.”Credit…Liam Daniel/NetflixJan. 21, 2021, 3:42 a.m. ETLONDON — As is so often the case, the theater got there first.I’m referring to the approach to race and casting in “Bridgerton,” the sartorially splendid Netflix study in hyperactive Regency-era hormones that everyone’s talking about. Much has been made of the presence across the eight-part series of Black actors populating a Jane Austen-style landscape that is usually shown onscreen as all white.In fact, as London theater observers of a certain generation can attest, this has long been common practice onstage here, across a range of titles and historical periods. That’s been true whether it’s been part of Britain’s pioneering interest in colorblind casting or, as with “Bridgerton,” when productions have played with audience expectations about race to make a point.Either way, the prevailing desire has been to fashion a theatrical world that speaks to the multicultural reality of the country. The idea behind casting a Black actor as a Maine villager (in “Carousel”) or a Viennese court composer (in “Amadeus”) isn’t documentary verisimilitude; rather, it’s to make clear that such time-honored stories belong to all of us, regardless of race.So it seems entirely logical that “Bridgerton” features Black talent — including regulars on the London stage — as nobles and royalty. Among them is Golda Rosheuvel as Queen Charlotte, a casting choice intended to reflect the view of some historians that King George III’s wife was biracial.Regé-Jean Page as Simon Basset in “Bridgerton.”Credit…Liam Daniel/NetflixAdjoa Andoh as Lady Danbury.Credit…Liam Daniel/NetflixIt’s not long in “Bridgerton” before Simon Basset, an eligible Black aristocrat, announces himself with star-making swagger, and no shortage of naked flesh, in the sultry form of newcomer Regé-Jean Page. No less commanding is the Black actress Adjoa Andoh, who arches a mean eyebrow as Simon’s mentor of sorts, Lady Danbury. (She led the cast of a 2019 production of “Richard II” at Shakespeare’s Globe that was performed entirely by actresses of color.)Watching these performers swoop onto the screen, I was reminded of the comparable dazzle some decades back when the actress Josette Simon, who is Black, made her National Theater debut in a 1990 production of Arthur Miller’s “After the Fall,” playing Maggie, a character thought to have been based on Miller’s second wife, Marilyn Monroe. Gone was that play’s previously blonde-wigged heroine: Instead, the director Michael Blakemore’s production raised new possibilities about the relationship between Miller’s male lead, the liberal-leaning lawyer Quentin, and the singing star and seductress who becomes his wife.James Laurenson and Josette Simon in “After the Fall” at the National Theater in London in 1990.Credit…Alastair Muir/ShutterstockThat show removed the play from the realm of gossip — that’s to say, how much was Miller revealing about the famously doomed actress to whom he was married? Suddenly, a comparatively minor piece from the playwright seemed both more substantial and more moving, and Simon, who went on to play Cleopatra for the Royal Shakespeare Company just a few years ago, enjoyed a deserved moment of glory.The National Theater has kept pace with “After the Fall” in its casting ever since. Two years later, Nicholas Hytner’s revelatory revival of “Carousel” brought the clarion-voiced Black actor Clive Rowe an Olivier nomination for his role as the sweet, fish-loving Mr. Snow; in 2003, another landmark Hytner staging, “Henry V,” put the Black stage and screen star Adrian Lester in the title role.That fiery modern-dress production, with its evocations of the Iraq war, reminded audiences that combat can be blind to skin color — so why shouldn’t kingship? Lester triumphed in the part, as he had across town at the Donmar Warehouse in 1996 when he became the first Black performer to play Bobby in a major production of the Stephen Sondheim-George Furth musical “Company.”Adrian Lester as Henry V at the National Theater in 2003.Credit…Ivan Kyncl/ArenaPALThese days, casting across the racial spectrum mostly passes without comment here. But it’s instructive to note the immediate retaliation, in 2018, when the theater critic Quentin Letts, then writing for the Daily Mail, questioned the Royal Shakespeare Company’s casting of Leo Wringer, a Black actor, in a forgotten restoration comedy, “The Fantastic Follies of Mrs. Rich,” written in 1700.“Was Mr. Wringer cast because he is Black?” Letts inquired rhetorically in his review. “If so, the R.S.C.’s clunking approach to politically correct casting has again weakened its stage product.” The company’s artistic director, Gregory Doran, shot back a statement comparing Letts to “an old dinosaur, raising his head from the primordial swamp.”Sometimes, as with a recent, and remarkable, “Amadeus” that featured the vibrant Black actor Lucian Msamati in the role of the Italian composer Antonio Salieri, the casting is colorblind, which means that the performer has been chosen irrespective of race. Elsewhere, as with the Young Vic’s “Death of a Salesman” in 2019, a conscious choice has been made — in that instance, to present the Loman family as Black to change our perspective on a familiar play.“Bridgerton” looks at first as if it may be taking the first route, only to counter that assumption later on, when a surprise discussion among the characters steers the drama toward the second. “Color and race are part of the show,” the series’s creator, Chris Van Dusen, told The New York Times last month.“Bridgerton” harks back to a vanished England of corsets and chastity, while nodding toward the diverse society of today. That dual focus — the ability, from its casting onward, to straddle two worlds at once — is something that has been long understood on the London stage. At a time when London playhouses remain closed, such memories are the stuff of enjoyable reflection. I only hope that, if the second season of “Bridgerton” that Netflix has hinted at ever arrives, I will be squeezing it in between visits to the theater.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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      Why Digga D, a British Drill Artist, is Banned from Using Violent Lyrics

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      #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }The Best of 2020Best ComedyBest TV ShowsBest BooksBest MoviesBest AlbumsAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyFor British Drill Stars, the Police Are Listening CloselyRecent court rulings require officers to keep watch over artists’ rap lyrics, which prosecutors say celebrate gangs and violent crimes.The rapper Digga D, whose real name is Rhys Herbert, in a North London park this month. A court order, issued in 2018, restricts the subjects the musician can mention in his lyrics.Credit…Adama Jalloh for The New York TimesJan. 11, 2021LONDON — The British rapper Digga D can’t explain how he lost the use of an eye while serving a prison sentence last year: not because he doesn’t want to, but because talking about what happened might get him sent back to jail.The police here scrutinize everything the 20-year-old says in public, whether in an interview, or on a track.In 2018, Digga D was sentenced to a year in prison for conspiracy to commit violent disorder, after a court case in which music videos by the masked rapper were presented as evidence. In sentencing Digga D, whose real name is Rhys Herbert, the judge also issued an order banning him from releasing tracks that describe gang-related violence.He must notify the police within 24 hours of releasing new music, and provide them with the lyrics. If a court finds that his words incite violence, he can be sent back to prison; parole conditions also limit what he can say publicly about his past.So when asked, in a Zoom interview, about how he lost the sight in his eye, Digga D could only shrug.Digga D is a leading voice in Britain’s drill scene, a subgenre of hip-hop featuring eerie piano melodies layered over droning bass lines, and lyrics portraying life in some of the country’s most deprived neighborhoods. Arising in Chicago, drill started to take on a new life in London in the mid-2000s, fusing with the city’s grime and garage sounds and helping to drive offshoot scenes in places as disparate as Brooklyn and Brisbane, Australia.Digga D performing at the Wireless Connect virtual festival in July 2020.Credit…Lambert Productions, via BBCBut drill’s sometimes violent lyrics have led the police and lawmakers to accuse the genre of fueling knife crime, which is currently at a 10-year high in England, according to government figures.Like Digga D, some of Britain’s most popular drill artists have found themselves on the wrong side of the law, and their lyrics reflect their experiences of gang life, criminal justice and time behind bars.Sentencing orders, like the one banning Digga D from rapping about violence, have also been handed to other drill artists. Introduced in 2014 and known as criminal behavior orders, the measures give judges broad powers to regulate a convicted criminal’s life, such as by banning them from certain neighborhoods or by preventing them from meeting former associates. Judges have also used the orders to control some musicians’ lyrics, arguing that when rappers brag about attacks on rivals, it stokes street tensions.In January 2019, for example, a London judge sentenced the musicians Skengdo and AM to nine months in prison for breaking a criminal behavior order by performing a song with lyrics including a list of gang members who had been stabbed.Rebecca Byng, a spokeswoman for the London police’s violent crime unit, said in an email that criminal behavior orders had “a wide-ranging scope, and go beyond addressing lyrics which incite violence,” adding that they were an important tool to “steer young people away from violence.”“We are not targeting music artists, but addressing violent offenders,” she added.Yet the London police has recently stepped up its efforts to remove drill music videos from YouTube.In 2020, the video platform removed 319 music videos at the force’s urging, according to a police report obtained through a Freedom of Information request. That is more than twice the number it took down in 2019. In total, YouTube has removed more than 500 music videos over the past three years, the report says.Keir Monteith, a criminal defense attorney based in London, is advising a government-funded research project studying how rap lyrics are used as evidence in court. He said that in some ways, the authorities’ treatment of drill recalled the heyday of punk in the 1970s, when the police shut down concerts and the BBC banned a hit single by the Sex Pistols.But if punk artists were treated harshly, drill rappers have it even worse, Monteith said. The efforts of the criminal justice system were “focused, worryingly, on a particular set of our society, which is young Black lads,” he noted. “That’s the real concern here.”Lyrics that deal with life behind bars have long been defining features of American hip-hop, but they are relatively new preoccupations for British rappers. As a growing number of drill artists fall foul of the criminal justice system, however, those themes are starting to trickle through.“There’s more in my heart that I would like to speak about and show,” Digga D said.Credit…Adama Jalloh for The New York TimesIn a recent freestyle posted to YouTube, Digga D raps about using his jail kettle to boil canned tuna; and Headie One, another London-based drill rapper, describes using cookies to make a birthday cake in prison in “Ain’t It Different,” a song that reached No. 2 in the British singles chart this summer.Potter Payper, a 25-year-old drill musician, was incarcerated on drug-related charges when he wrote much of his most recent album, “Training Day 3.” He has been in prison 14 times, and, like Digga D, his music videos have formed part of the evidence used to convict him.During his most recent custodial sentence, Payper initially wasn’t writing music or looking after himself, he said in a phone interview. But a turning point came one evening in June 2019.Stormzy, perhaps Britain’s most commercially successful rapper, was performing on the main stage at the Glastonbury Festival, and Payper could hear fellow inmates in nearby cells listening to the rapper’s performance. After Stormzy named him onstage as one of his influences, the other prisoners started banging on their doors, yelling Payper’s name.After that, he wrote nearly 30 new songs, he said.How Digga D lost the use of his eye — the story he was so hesitant to talk about — can be found in prison records. He was stabbed with a blade fashioned from a tuna can, according to an official at the Ministry of Justice who was not authorized to publicly discuss the matter and who spoke on the condition of anonymity. Cecilia Goodwin, Digga D’s lawyer, said that the rapper had been struggling with post-traumatic stress disorder after the attack.But much of Digga D’s experience remains hidden, for now.“There’s more in my heart that I would like to speak about and show,” he said.He might get to do that with music when the court order expires, in 2025.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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      Side Hustles and Handouts: A Tough Year Ahead for U.K. Theater Workers

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      AdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storySide Hustles and Handouts: A Tough Year Ahead for U.K. Theater WorkersWith playhouses closed for the next few months, actors and backstage crews are looking for new ways to make ends meet.The actress Amanda Lawrence modeling an outfit by Ti Green, a costume and set designer who has turned to selling clothing online while Britain’s theaters are closed.Credit…Craig FullerJan. 8, 2021LONDON — Last August, Tom Boucher was among the first in Britain’s theater industry to get back to work, after theaters were closed for months because of the coronavirus.For six weeks, Boucher, 29, was a lighting technician for “Sleepless: A Musical Romance” a show based on the popular 1993 movie “Sleepless in Seattle.” He felt so lucky to have a job again, he recalled in a telephone interview.Every day, until the run ended, Boucher went to the Troubadour Wembley Park Theater, where he was tested for the coronavirus before bathing the stage with warm tones to conjure the show’s romantic atmosphere.But that joy was short-lived, he said.Tom Boucher, shown onscreen and onstage at rear, was a lighting technician for “Sleepless: A Musical Romance.”Credit…Dale DriscollFreelancers — both actors and backstage crew members like Boucher — are the lifeblood of Britain’s theaters, making up an estimated 70 percent of the country’s 290,000 workers in the performing arts, according to U.K. Theater, a trade body. But that workforce’s flexibility makes it particularly exposed to any changes in coronavirus restrictions.Facing a new wave of the virus, England on Monday went into a national lockdown again. Theatrical performances are banned for months, and Prime Minister Boris Johnson has said restrictions could last until March 31, which means Britain’s estimated 200,000 freelance theater workers are once more facing financial trouble and looking for ways to get by.Boucher guessed it would be April, at best, before he could work again in a theater. On Monday, with bills piling up, he applied to the Theater Artists Fund, a body that gives emergency grants to theater freelancers imperiled by the pandemic. He was hoping for 1,000 pounds, or about $1,350.“I know it sounds silly,” Boucher said, “but £1,000 can really go a long way at the moment.”The Theatre Artists Fund, which was created by the film and theater director Sam Mendes as a response to the pandemic, gave out around 4,600 grants last year in three funding rounds, Eva Mason, a spokeswoman for the program, said in an email. It reopened to applications on Monday and received “hundreds” in two days, she added.Just a few weeks ago, Britain’s theaters seemed to be on the verge of a triumphant return. On Dec. 5, “Six,” the hit musical about the wives of Henry VIII, returned to the West End, in London, alongside several other shows including a concert version of “Les Misérables.” But then restrictions were tightened in the city, forcing those to shut, and then came the nationwide lockdown — England’s third since March.“Six” a musical about the wives of Henry VIII, returned briefly to the West End, in December.Credit…Suzanne Plunkett for The New York TimesAccording to Freelancers Make Theater Work, a campaigning organization, 36 percent of freelancers in the industry are not eligible for help under the British government’s coronavirus support programs. “I fell through every single possible crack to get government support,” Boucher said.Another private program, the Fleabag Support Fund, created by Phoebe Waller-Bridge and the producer Francesca Moody, also saw a boom in applications this week. It opens for five days each month to applicants, and has given out 772 grants since April, worth an average £742.But such generosity only goes so far. In telephone interviews this week, four theater freelancers said they had set up their own businesses to get through the pandemic; another said he was working as a delivery driver; and another said she was relying on a combination of unemployment checks and parental support.Cakes from Flour and Fold, a baking business started by Jessica Howells, who used to work as a sound engineer.Credit…Jessica Howells“The situation actually feels worse than March,” said Jessica Howells, a sound engineer who had been working on “Phantom of the Opera” in the West End when the pandemic struck. “Back then I didn’t know anyone who had coronavirus. Now, I know a lot of people,” she added.Last summer, Howells was laid off, so she started a baking business, she said. She now makes brownies and party cakes that are delivered to customers across Britain. “It’s enough to pay the bills, to survive,” she said. Her partner, also a theater freelancer, now delivers eggs door-to-door, she added.Ti Green, a Tony Award-nominated costume and set designer, started a business a little closer to her usual line of work, making bespoke women’s wear. She loved still doing something creative, she said in a telephone interview, but was desperate to “get back into a dark theater, where everyone’s working together to create.”She had no idea when that would be, she said, but added, “I’m trying not to lose hope.”Moody of the Fleabag Support Fund said she was worried that many freelancers would leave the industry for good. “I do think we’ll lose a large swath to other jobs,” she said. “It’s a real problem for theater, as we’ll have a smaller talent pool,” she added.None of the six freelancers interviewed said they were intending to change career. One, at least, was trying to channel a new line of work back into something dramatic. Stewart Wright, 46, an actor, said in a telephone interview that last year he started working as a courier to get by. Every Friday, Saturday and Sunday night, he cycled around Bristol, England, delivering takeout.Bristol has many hills, and Wright can only last four hours on his bike per night, he said, but the experience had inspired him creatively: He was now working on a script for a sitcom, called “Downhill,” about a middle-aged man who loses his high-profile job and ends up as a pizza delivery guy.The actor Stewart Wright as Santa Claus in a 10-minute production he performed on doorsteps around Bristol, England.Credit…Mark DawsonWright had not given up performing entirely, he added. Last month, he co-created a 10-minute Christmas show which he performed, dressed as Santa Claus, on doorsteps in Bristol. (The production was a partnership with the Tobacco Factory theater in the city.) “I suppose I’ve been in this fight or flight mode, where I’m just trying to piece together a living from all sorts of stuff,” Wright added.He doesn’t expect to get any theatrical work this year, he said, but was trying not to think about that. “I’m not spending energy on asking, ‘When will I get work in a theater again?’ as it’s just wasted,” he said. Wright needed all the energy he could get, after all: He had to get back on his delivery bike.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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      The Royal Academy of Dance: From Music Hall to Ballet Royalty

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      #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }The Best of 2020Best ComedyBest TV ShowsBest BooksBest MoviesBest AlbumsAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyFrom the Music Hall to Ballet Royalty: A British TaleThe history of the Royal Academy of Dance, outlined at an exhibition in London, is synonymous with the history of ballet in Britain.The Danish-born ballerina Adeline Genée, who was a founder of the Royal Academy of Dance, in “A Dream of Butterflies and Roses.”Credit…Hugh CecilJan. 6, 2021Updated 2:07 p.m. ET“It is absolute nonsense to say that the English temperament is not suited for dancing,” Edouard Espinosa, a London dance teacher, said in 1916. It was only a lack of skilled teaching, he added, that prevented the emergence of “perfect dancers.” Espinosa was speaking to a reporter from Lady’s Pictorial about a furor that he had caused in the dance world with this idea: Dance instructors, he insisted, should adhere to standards and be examined on their work.Four years later, in 1920, a teaching organization that would become the Royal Academy of Dance (R.A.D.) was founded by Espinosa and several others, including the Danish-born Adeline Genée and the Russian ballerina Tamara Karsavina. Today, the academy is one of the major ballet training programs in the world, with students in 92 countries following syllabuses and taking its exams governed by the organization. And as the exhibition “On Point: Royal Academy of Dance at 100,” at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, shows, its history is synonymous with the history of ballet in Britain.“A lot of British dance’s legacy started with the R.A.D.,” said Darcey Bussell, a former Royal Ballet ballerina who has been the president of the academy since 2012. “It’s important that dance training and teaching are kept entwined with the professional world, and the R.A.D. has done that from the start.”There wasn’t yet a national ballet company in Britain when the Royal Academy was formed. But there was plenty of ballet, said Jane Pritchard, the curator of dance, theater and performance at the Victoria and Albert museum. She curated the exhibition with Eleanor Fitzgerald, the archives and records manager at the Royal Academy of Dance. “The Ballets Russes were there, Pavlova was performing in London, and there were excellent émigré teachers arriving,” Ms. Pritchard said. “So the R.A.D. came into existence at just the right moment, taking the best of the Italian, French and Russian schools and bringing it together to create a British style, which it then sent out into the world again.”The exhibition, which runs through September 2021, had its scheduled May opening delayed by Covid-19 restrictions. It opened on Dec. 2, but was shut down again when Britain reimposed restrictions in mid-December. While we wait for the museum to reopen, here is a tour of some of the exhibition’s photographs, designs and objects, which touch on some of the most important figures in 20th-century ballet history.‘The World’s Greatest Dancer’ (or so said Ziegfeld)Adeline Genée (1878-1970), who spent much of her career in England, reigned for a decade as the prima ballerina at the Empire Theater, where she appeared in variety programs. She was both revered as a classical dancer and hugely popular with the public; Florenz Ziegfeld billed her as “The World’s Greatest Dancer” when she performed in the United States in 1907. Genée became the first president of the Royal Academy of Dance, and her connections to royalty and her popularity with the public made her an excellent figurehead.The 1915 photograph shows Genée in her own short ballet, “A Dream of Butterflies and Roses,” in a costume by Wilhelm, the resident designer at the Empire Theater and an important figure on the theatrical scene. “It’s a really good example of the kind of costume and the kind of ballets that were being shown at the time,” Ms. Fitzpatrick said. “Ballet was still part of music-hall entertainment.”A popular entertainmentAt the Coliseum in July 1922.Credit…via Victoria and Albert Museum, LondonThis 1922 poster of weekly variety-show offerings at the London Coliseum suggests how ballet was seen around the time that the Royal Academy of Dance was founded. “It was part of a bigger general picture, and this shows it visually,” Ms. Pritchard said. “Sybil Thorndike was a great British actress and would have given a short performance of a play or monologue; Grock was a very famous clown. Most of the Coliseum bills had some sort of dance element, but it wasn’t always ballet.”Karsavina: An independent artistClaud Lovat Fraser’s drawing of Jumping Joan’s costume for Tamara Karsavina in “Nursery Rhymes” at the Coliseum 1921.Credit…Rachel Cameron Collection/Victoria and Albert Museum, LondonJumping Joan was one of three characters danced by Tamara Karsavina in “Nursery Rhymes,” which she choreographed, to music by Schubert, for an evening at the Coliseum Theater in London in 1921. Unusually for ballet at the time in London, it was a stand-alone show rather than part of a variety program. Karsavina and her company performed it twice a day for two weeks.“People associate Karsavina with the Ballets Russes, but she also had her own group of dancers, which performed regularly at the Coliseum,” Ms. Pritchard said. “She was really an independent artist in a way we think is very modern, working with a major company but also having an independent existence.”She also tried to promote British artists; the costume design was by Claud Lovat Fraser, a brilliant theater designer who died in his early 30s. “I think Lovat Fraser is the British equivalent of Bakst,” Ms. Pritchard said. “His drawings are so animated and precise, and he uses color wonderfully to create a sense of character.”Good for athletes, tooBallet exercises for athletes.Credit…Ali Wright, Dance GazetteIn 1954, the Whip and Carrot Club, an association of high jumpers, approached the Royal Academy of Dance with an unusual request. Its members had read that in both Russia and America, athletes had benefited from taking ballet classes, and they asked the Academy to formulate lessons that would improve their elevation.The outcome was a course that ran for several years, with classes for high jumpers and hurdlers and, later, “steeplechasers, discus and javelin-throwers,” according to a Pathé film clip, on show in the exhibition. In 1955, a booklet was produced, showing 13 exercises designed to help jumping, drawn by the cartoonist Cyril Kenneth Bird, known professionally as Fougasse and famous for government propaganda posters (“Careless talk costs lives”) produced during World War II.“I love the photograph of Margot Fonteyn looking on in her fur coat!” Ms. Pritchard said.From generation to generationTamara Karsavina, left, coaching Margot Fonteyn in “The Firebird,” in 1954.Credit…Douglas ElstonKarsavina, vice president of the Royal Academy of Dance until 1955, developed a teachers’ training course syllabus as well as other sections of the advanced exams. As a dancer, she created the title role in Mikhail Fokine’s “The Firebird,” with music by Stravinsky, when the Ballets Russes first performed the ballet at the Paris Opera in 1910. Here she is shown coaching Margot Fonteyn, when the Royal Ballet first staged the ballet, in 1954, the year that Fonteyn took over from Genée as president of the Royal Academy of Dance.“Karsavina had firsthand knowledge of what the choreographer and composer wanted, and is passing it on,” Ms. Fitzpatrick said. (“I never was one to count,” Karsavina says in a film clip about learning “The Firebird”; “Stravinsky was very kind.”) “There is a wonderful sense of handing things from one generation to the next.”Fonteyn and NureyevFonteyn with Rudolf Nureyev at rehearsals for the Royal Academy of Dance Gala in 1963.Credit…Royal Academy of Dance/ArenaPAL, via GBL WilsonThis relaxed moment from a 1963 rehearsal shows the ease and rapport between Fonteyn and the youthful Rudolf Nureyev, who had defected from Russia two years earlier. They were rehearsing for the annual Royal Academy of Dance gala, which Fonteyn established to raise funds for the organization. Her fame enabled her to bring together international guests, British dancers and even contemporary dance choreographers like Paul Taylor.“The gala was also an opportunity for Fonteyn and Nureyev to try things that they perhaps wouldn’t have danced with the Royal Ballet,” Ms. Pritchard said. “Here, they were in rehearsal for ‘La Sylphide,’ because Nureyev was passionate about the Bournonville choreography. They really look like two dancers who are happy with one another.”‘Diminutive, dapper and precise’Stanislas Idzikowski teaching in 1952.Credit…Central Office of InformationStanislas Idzikowski, known as Idzi to his students, was a Polish dancer who had moved to London in his teens and danced with Anna Pavlova’s company before joining the Ballets Russes, where he inherited many of Vaslav Nijinsky’s roles. A close friend of Karsavina, he later became a much-loved teacher and worked closely with the Royal Academy of Dance. Always formally clad in a three-piece suit with a stiff collared shirt and elegant shoes, he was, Fonteyn wrote in her autobiography, “diminutive, dapper and precise.”In this 1952 photograph, he is teaching fifth-year girls who were probably hoping to go on to professional careers. Idzikowski was also involved with the Royal Academy of Dance’s Production Club, started in 1932 to allow students over 14 to work with choreographers; Frederick Ashton and Robert Helpmann were among the early volunteers, and later a young John Cranko created his first work there.Party polkaStudents demonstrate a dance for Margot Fonteyn and others in 1972.Credit…Felix FonteynThis 1972 photograph of young girls about to begin a sequence called the “party polka” was taken by Fonteyn’s brother, Felix, who also filmed the demonstration being given by a group of primary school students for Fonteyn and other teachers. The footage, which had been stored in the Royal Academy of Dance’s archives in canisters marked “Children’s Syllabus,” was only recently discovered by Ms. Fitzgerald.The film offers a rare glimpse of Fonteyn in her offstage role at the Royal Academy of Dance, Ms. Fitzgerald said, and it reflects an important change that the ballerina made during her presidency. “People really think about Fonteyn as a dancer, but she was very involved with teaching and syllabus development,” Ms. Fitzgerald said. Earlier syllabuses, she explained, had included mime, drama and history, but when a panel, including Fonteyn, revised the program in 1968, they did away with much of this.“They wanted to streamline everything and make it more enjoyable for the children, and just focus on the movement,” Ms. Fitzgerald said. “The party polka is a good example of that, with a great sense for the children of whirling around the room, and really dancing.”AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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      ‘Christmas Carol’ Review: Brooding Scrooge Gets Ghosted

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      #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }The Best of 2020Best ComedyBest TV ShowsBest BooksBest MoviesBest AlbumsAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyCritic’s Pick‘Christmas Carol’ Review: Brooding Scrooge Gets GhostedAn elaborate production streamed live from London makes a miser out of Andrew Lincoln and the rest of us rich with holiday cheer.Andrew Lincoln makes for a particularly charismatic, if obstinate, Scrooge in the Old Vic production of “A Christmas Carol.”Credit…Manuel HarlanPublished More

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      ‘Six’ Tries to Get Back Onstage. Again, and Again, and Again.

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      #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }The Best of 2020Best MoviesBest TV ShowsBest BooksBest TheaterBest AlbumsAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main story‘Six’ Tries to Get Back Onstage. Again, and Again, and Again.For nine months, the hit musical about the wives of Henry VIII has tried to keep the show going. But that’s not easy in a pandemic.A security guard takes ticket holders’ temperatures before a performance of “Six” in London, on Dec. 5.Credit…Photographs by Suzanne Plunkett for The New York TimesPublished More

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      Days After Reopening, London Theaters Must Shut

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      #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }The Coronavirus OutbreakliveLatest UpdatesMaps and CasesThe Latest Vaccine InformationU.S. Deaths Surpass 300,000F.A.Q.AdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyDays After Reopening, London Theaters Must ShutThe musical “Six” and a concert version of “Les Miserables” are among the shows that will close because of rising coronavirus cases in the city.Pedestrians walk past the Lyric Theatre before the performance of the musical “Six” in London on Dec. 5.Credit…Suzanne Plunkett for The New York TimesDec. 14, 2020LONDON — On Dec. 5, “Six” — the hit show about the wives of Henry VIII — staged a triumphant comeback when it became the first musical to be staged in London’s West End since the coronavirus pandemic began in March.Now, just nine days later, that comeback has been brought to a sharp halt.Matt Hancock, Britain’s health secretary, announced on Monday that the government was tightening restrictions in London, as well as other parts of southern England, because of a “very sharp, exponential rise” in coronavirus cases. The new restrictions, which include a ban on theatrical performances and the closure of other indoor cultural institutions, like museums, would take effect Wednesday, he added. Pubs and restaurants would also close, though they could still offer takeout.“For businesses affected, it will be a significant blow, but this action is absolutely essential,” Hancock said, addressing Britain’s Parliament.Many theaters in London have been closed since the beginning of the pandemic, in March, though some smaller shows returned in the summer, with reduced audiences and socially distanced performers.In November, some major productions, including “Six,” were slated to return, but the British government announced a national lockdown that scrapped their plans.That lockdown lifted on Dec. 2 and England moved to a tiered system of restrictions, with differing rules around the country, including for cultural events.The Coronavirus Outbreak More