Giselle - Parramatta Riverside Theatres - 29/09/06

Ethan Switch - Wednesday, 4 October 2006 - Print Version

Take a breath and watch as the waters of the Parramatta River glisten under the sounds of the chatter from the cafes and restaurants not so far away. Gibberish, gobble and the usual that concerns people who walk and talk with an air of burning up the night.

Stalls for all, the seats of the Riverside Theatre playing host to bodies that fill the section close to the stage. Man at the back with the decks looks like the cover for the orchestra. Not that there's anything wrong with it, just the testy touchy look back given in icy shards. Combatants of sound!

Build up on the black and into the red of the stage curtain is lengthy, almost with a feeling of forgetting the night and watching the sounds beat off the fabric. And then the curtain raises and the story unfolds.

For those late into the game and looking for the quick rundown, Giselle is about a love triangle, ghosts and revenge. And a dead pheasant to boot. Though for feathery reasons, this part is never an actual fleshy specimen. Too bloody perhaps. No buffet for those looking to pick up more food.

Stunning and awe inspiring is merely being in the audience as the scene unfolds with the Premiere State Ballet sliding on the show. With ages ranging 13 to 17, it's make up and lighting that plays into defying the true years of the ballet dancers. A young woman here is about the same of face as her peer, only showing more of the crib than another.

What's amazing is simply watching these young performers break in all the varied positions and emotions of the mute play. A range of facial expressions showing more than their fresh faces would assume. Only in these cases, the battle is half done, the other is keeping on their toes.

Few snaps in the flow are seen, the overall marvel coming up to float a nice bevy of white in a spinning netherworld of lost and longing. With fairy demons to boot, always about the fairy demons. Never mind what the programme says, that's for the after show.

It's all about sinking in the soak of the spectacle, and it's quite the show indeed.

Programme sellers outside, on a stall between the bar and the theatre, start looking like they want to rip lip. Only it isn't of them and they make a sale anyway, cordial and quick like. Tenners are easy that way, and walking right into a floating table is what gets in the way of the exit. Every one for themselves as the splinters start to fly in mental images along lines of shattered bones.

Ethan Switch

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• giselle,
• ballet,
• riverside theatre