“There just is no other way for me to create,” Alastair Marriott tells me when I ask him about his choreographic influences. Through an impressive career with The Royal Ballet, Marriott absorbed their distinctive way of infusing movement with meaning. While he has a deep reverence for the narrative works of Ashton, Cranko and MacMillan, it’s clear Marriott relishes the idea that in creating his own work, he doesn’t have to “play by anybody else’s rules”. It is a keen ability for story-telling that he brings to a new full-length work based on Charlie Chaplin’s 1931 silent movie City Lights for the National Ballet of Japan, premiering in October at the New National Theatre, Tokyo.
To contemporary audiences, Charlie Chaplin’s work could seem somewhat distant, but he was one of the 20th century’s first global megastars. His masterful visual storytelling in silent pictures cemented him as one of cinema’s most instantly recognisable figures. City Lights (1931) was one of his most significant triumphs – initially touted as a commercial risk that few wanted to distribute. Chaplin was writing, directing, starring in (and composing music for) a silent movie released four years into Hollywood’s sound revolution. A romantic comedy, the story follows Chaplin’s noble-hearted Tramp as he falls in love with a blind Flower Girl, going to extraordinary lengths to raise money for an operation that will restore her sight.
A silent movie could seem a natural choice for adaptation for dance, since both mediums rely on body language to express complex human emotions. Ballet’s potential to reveal the arc of our interior states is one of its strengths, and Chaplin’s silent film gives Marriott latitude to explore this through a story much deeper than its comedic surface might suggest. Chaplin’s work leant heavily into the theatrical sensibility, in how he used the film image as a proscenium to frame the body. Marriott tells me that Chaplin’s output was very much in his consciousness as a boy watching his movies at his local film club in the Kent village where he grew up.
“Well, of course, because it’s a silent film, you don’t need language to communicate,” Marriott relates, suggesting that the source material was more easily accessible for the dancers, unlike working from text, or a film with a dense script. “But the close ups,” so key to emotionally charged moments in a film, “were something I had to think about… It’s impossible to get that kind of intimacy” when the scale in a theatre is completely different.
Chaplin was famous for his purposeful use of close-ups in City Lights, and for his extraordinary perfectionism. (For the flower stand sequence, in which the Tramp and the flower girl meet for the first time, Chaplin shot a total of 451 takes over two years.) Chaplin’s story, following the Tramp across several colourful encounters – a boisterous boxing match, a riotous party as well as an attempt to befriend a troubled millionaire – offered Marriott a structural rhythm that naturally aligned with the conventions of a ballet. Large crowd scenes are balanced by moments of tenderness and pathos; intimate and emotionally charged pas de deux can be supported by group dances, commanding the full powers of a large classical company.
Marriott also decided to include additional roles, slightly augmenting Chaplin’s original cast. “We’ve added two Movie Stars that help give some opportunities for other principals in the company, and a sub-plot that centres on the millionaire’s butler and maid, who are quite unscrupulous characters.” These embellishments are very much part of Chaplin’s universe, and were signed off by the Chaplin Office, which manages the rights-holding companies on behalf of Chaplin family. “There was an incredible amount of discussion with his family on this project,” not only to gain the rights to use the story and music, but to adapt the material sensitively to create a ballet capturing Chaplin’s spirit.
Marriott also worked closely with Timothy Brock, preeminent authority on Chaplin’s music, on how to sculpt Chaplin’s original score for use in this work. Appropriately for dance, Chaplin wanted his music to represent the voice of his characters, but Marriott explains he and Brock had to expand scene transitions because nothing on stage can resemble the seamless editing between scenes in a movie.
“Timothy really enjoyed adopting the hand of Charlie Chaplin for the project,” having conducted the music for the film all over the world in live orchestral showings of the 1931 film. Brock’s familiarity with the material meant that he could produce new music to Marriott’s specifications with remarkable speed.
Similarly, British designer Dick Bird relished the opportunity to bring the visual landscape of Chaplin’s world to the Tokyo stage. “Dick adores the period,” Marriott says, describing it as “poised between the last sparkle of the Roaring Twenties and the emerging Great Depression.” With support from the Chaplin estate, Bird was able to examine clothing worn by Chaplin and use details in his designs.
Marriott explains that “the colours of the clothes actually surprised us all. You have a concept in your mind because the movie is in black and white – and then the items in the flesh are very different.” Ellen Ruge’s lighting designs, with her photographic eye and sensitive approach to colour further enhance Marriott’s stage world for the ballet.
What is clear about this new production is how much of a full-company endeavour it is. “I can honestly say I have never worked with a nicer group of dancers,” Marriott tells me, when I ask him about his experience creating with the National Ballet of Japan. Not simply a matter of how accommodating the dancers are – indeed Marriott feels “they’re a company full of great actors,” respectful of their work and hungry to hone their dramatic sense.
“I worked on Miyako Yoshida’s Giselle” with the company in 2022, Marriott explains, later taken on tour to the Royal Opera House in July 2025, “producing additional dances but also making the interactions more natural and realistic”. Working with the company in this way – using classical language to say something more human, rather than less – laid fertile ground for casting City Lights. With four principal casts, there is no shortage of talent in the company. The role of the Tramp is a marathon of dramatic and comedic skill, and Marriott has relished bringing him to the stage with some of the company’s principal men: “Kosuke Okumura is phenomenal, and clearly relishes doing his homework on Chaplin”.
Marriott expands about his casting approach: “I like to cast younger dancers with more senior ones in a partnership, because both dancers gain so much from that experience.” The verve of youth is balanced by an experienced understanding of how to pace a physically and creatively demanding role. Yui Yonezawa will create the role of the blind Flower Girl, and Marriott’s approach with the ballerina was to answer the choreographic question of “what can I do?”, instead of seeing the character’s blindness as something that would take away from the choreography.
Marriott considered the practicalities of life for someone with vision impairment, stimulating more creative movement – such as an unconventional way to instigate pirouettes, and illustrating plot points for an audience in ways that differ from the film. “We have the Flower Girl counting out the number of feet between furniture in her home, so the audience understand what it means to live this way, and that it isn’t limiting at all.” The Flower Girl embarks on a life as full as any one of us, and Chaplin’s Tramp takes a moment to really see her as a person, rather than discounting her because of a condition.
This kind of emotional intelligence means City Lights is more than diverting dancing and creative stagecraft. Its poetic centre makes it an ideal vehicle for a modern ballet company. Marriott originally gave Yoshida quite different ideas for a commissioned work, but artistic director Miyako Yoshida selected the 1931 film. “It was a bold choice by Miyako, but one that speaks volumes about her vision for the company,” and its growing international profile. Commissioning a new narrative ballet is a strategic shift from producing revivals of established ballets, showing the company’s desire to have a strong artistic identity.
Marriott notes Yoshida’s desire to modernise the company and profiting from her deep understanding of the British classical canon is an intelligent pathway, whilst Chaplin’s City Lights makes a clever entry point for new audiences in a country that appreciates the actor’s oeuvre. With Marriott – and a buoyant creative team – this masterpiece of early modern cinema will gain a new guise on stage in Tokyo and beyond.
Alistair Marriott and the National Ballet of Japan perform City Lights at the New National Theatre, Tokyo from 23rd October.
See upcoming performances by the National Ballet of Japan.
See upcoming performances at the New National Theatre, Tokyo.
This article was sponsored by the New National Theatre, Tokyo.
