Three very different works generated an increasing fervour in the first-night audience for Queensland Ballet’s Trilogy programme, culminating in the world premiere of Cathy Marston’s My Brilliant Career. Marston’s creation of this work on the company is very exciting for all involved and for local audiences.
Based on Miles Franklin’s 1901 novel My Brilliant Career and developed in collaboration with dramaturg Edward Kemp, the 45-minute neoclassical ballet is succinct, pacy and emotionally absorbing. It tells the story of 16-year-old Sybylla, torn between a life that includes love and marriage, and a life that leads to adventure and discovery.
Marston’s idea of splitting the main role of Sybylla into two is brilliant. Syb (Mia Heathcote) is her more romantic persona and Bylla (Laura Tosar) her feistier, more adventurous one. However, both are strong personalities. A movement theme for each of them is a physical reaching and focus towards the future, rather than the present.
Heathcote and Tosar were both outstanding in their roles, the former with a lovely line and flow in the more romantic passages, and the latter with a spiky defiance in rejecting conformity. When occasionally mirroring each other’s movements, they gave an uncanny impression of being the same person.
The origin of Sybylla’s longing for ‘a brilliant career’ is explained in the opening scenes on the family farm, showing her downtrodden mother (Sophie Zoricic), her alcoholic father (Alexander Idaszak), and five unruly siblings. Later, she goes to stay with her rich maternal grandmother (Yanela Piñera) and Aunt Helen (Chiara Gonzalez) at Caddagat, a large rural property. Piñera had an authoritative presence as Grannie, with steely pointework and balances. Gonzalez, in contrast, projected sweetness and consolation, with more rounded, gentler movement.
At Caddagat, Sybylla receives two proposals: from the entitled, arrogant Frank (Rian Thompson), and from Harry (Victor Estévez), a heart-throb resplendent in a cream suit. Estévez moves and partners Heathcote and Tosar with elegance, and also a grounded quality in response to their mischief.
The ingenious set (set and costume design by David Fleischer) uses a raw timber framework that folds and unfolds to represent a small farmhouse, Caddagat’s grand homestead, a veranda, and a porch. The costumes evoke fashions of the era, with an elegant simplicity for Sybylla, Grannie and Aunt Helen at Caddagat, and drab workaday clothes for the farm. The plain backdrop is lit in changing colours (lighting design by Paul Jackson).
The melodic and thematic music for My Brilliant Career was commissioned from Australian composer Matthew Hindson. Queensland's Chamber Orchestra Camerata, conducted by Nigel Gaynor, gave vibrant performances of Hindson’s music, and of Tom Harrold’s for A Brief Nostalgia, the first work on the programme.
This performance was the Australian premiere of Jack Lister’s A Brief Nostalgia, a co-production with Birmingham Royal Ballet, first performed in Birmingham in 2019. In a poetic programme note, Lister recalls memories invoked by scent, fleeting visual impressions, and physical sensations. In contrast to this lyricism, the work is stark and abstract, with the set consisting of high grey walls, and the lighting by turns harsh or dim. (Set and costume design is by Thomas Mika, and lighting design by Alexander Berlage.)
The 12 dancers, all in grey (knee-length dresses for the women, long pants and T-shirts for the men), are often lit to project tall shadows on the walls, magnifying the movement. They appear intent on the shadows, which perhaps represent memories.
The movement is sometimes slow-paced and reflective, with the arms lifted as if reaching for something. At other times it is forceful, with dancers flinging away from the walls, running, and hurling into lifts. They projected an energetic physicality and intensity, but also a sense of remoteness. The music is brooding and dark, with outbursts of brass and winds, rumbling and thundering from the percussion.
Following A Brief Nostalgia, the witty, tongue-in-cheek energy of Christopher Bruce’s Rooster was a complete contrast. It was hard not to bop along obviously to the (recorded) Rolling Stones hits, such as Little Red Rooster, Ruby Tuesday, and Paint It Black. This crowd-pleasing work is doubly nostalgic, having premiered in 1991.
The 10 dancers looked as though they were having fun. The men posture and preen, their head-jerking ‘rooster’ strutting a constant theme, satirising their self-importance, in contrast to the women’s flippant mockery. Movement from popular dance, such as swing, and echoes of courtly dance and ballroom are combined with leaps, rolls and spins on the floor, executed with abundant energy and precision.
The design is simple, with a plain backdrop in changing colours, and lighting focusing on different areas of the stage (designed by Tina MacHugh, Christina R. Giannelli, and reproduced by Cameron Georg). The costumes (designed by Marian Bruce) evoke the sixties, with the women in short black and red skirts and black tops, or black minidresses with red scarves, the men in coloured shirts, jackets and ties, and dark trousers.
Overall this was a very enjoyable triple bill, deservedly acclaimed by the audience.
