Tomasson’s Shakespeare Seldom Hits the Mark

Romeo (Angelo Greco) encountering Juliet (Jasmine Jimison) in the Capulet tomb (photograph by Lindsay Thomas, courtesy of San Francisco Ballet)

Yesterday afternoon I visited the War Memorial Opera House to see the fourth of the ten performances of Helgi Tomasson’s San Francisco Ballet choreography for the Romeo & Juliet ballet score composed by Sergei Prokofiev. I have to confess that I have lost count of the number of different stagings for different ballet companies that I have experienced, both on the stage and through the media of film and video. I find it particularly interesting that Prokofiev could compose a score whose episodes align so precisely with the overall narrative, yet the score is flexible enough to accommodate different approaches to the story taken by different choreographers.

Sadly, Tomasson’s approach to the narrative has been one of the more disappointing versions that I have encountered. This is due in part to rearrangements of the score that do not always align with the composer’s intensions and end up confusing the narrative, rather than highlighting it. Mind you, since this is a story that almost everyone knows by heart, it is not difficult to tolerate distortions in the narrative; but the experience can still run the gamut from frustrating to downright annoying.

Of course one can still follow the trajectories of the two “star-cross'd lovers” (danced yesterday afternoon by Aaron Robison and Nikisha Fogo) with little difficulty; but it often takes a while (if not longer) to align the other dancers with the traits that distinguish their respective characters. This is particularly the case where Mercutio (Cavan Conley) is concerned. It is all too easy to confuse him with Benvolio (Mingxuan Wang) until Tybalt (Alexander Reneff-Olson) fatally stabs him.

This is not a matter of picking nits. The title characters may dominate the narrative, but their personalities are shaped by a generous number of roles for other members of the cast. Tomasson never seems to get his choreography around the context established by those other roles, focusing instead on managing well-designed crowd scenes that contribute very little to the telling of the story, either by Shakespeare or by anyone else. Ironically, Prokofiev’s score often captures character traits with meticulous precision; but Tomasson tended to rearrange the music in ways that undermined its impact.

Many readers may know by now that previous encounters with Tomasson’s choreography have left me with many memorable experiences, but I doubt that my memory will retain much from his approach to Romeo & Juliet.