Poets of Gesture: A Brilliant Return to Verona at PNB
- Louise Greer
- Apr 17
- 11 min read
Updated: Apr 19
Few ballets feel as though they have impacted the identity of Pacific Northwest Ballet as much as Jean-Christophe Maillot’s Roméo et Juliette. Maillot’s dramatic masterpiece was a declaration of new artistic notion when it replaced Kent Stowell’s 1987 The Tragedy of Romeo and Juliet in the company’s repertory. In 2008, Pacific Northwest Ballet became the first company in the country to perform this brilliantly crafted, timeless work that has woven itself indelibly into the region's cultural fabric in the seventeen years since its premiere.
Its bold voice carries this archetypal story unlike any other telling, and, no matter how well you think you know Shakespeare’s infamous tale, Maillot’s retelling is new and etched with more meaning every time it fills the stage. As he reflected in 2008: “It’s connected to our ways. It’s connected to the reality of the world today... It’s pure enough that it doesn’t impose a point of view. It gives you the chance… to steal what you see and to make it yours”. Maillot’s vision for his Roméo et Juliette is inspired by cinematic principles, particularly by what Franco Zeffirelli achieved in his 1968 adaptation of Romeo and Juliet. Bringing the elements of opening credits, fade-ins, still frames, slow motion, the disregard for the audience (“There is no one out there,” he said in 2008), and the kind of psychological complexity not typically seen in classical ballets, it’s unlike anything else in the repertory.
After a hiatus of three years, seeing that cinematic overture feels like coming home to Verona, and oh, what a luminous place to land. The curtain’s ascent reveals a setting where anything might happen, a white expanse layered with the depth of color and texture of Dominique Drillot’s richly poetic lighting. There is no stone-laid balcony, no golden ballroom, or grand renaissance architecture, for Maillot trusts his audiences to see what he leaves bare. Walls move like turning pages to reveal frozen scenes which then burst to life, creating a masterful picture of storytelling in all of its forms. There is beauty in simplicity, and this toned-down scenery allows movement to show its full passion without distraction.
By reinventing the essence of Friar Laurence and placing the weight of the story upon his shoulders, Maillot’s crafting of the story allows for ellipsis and deepens the story by letting Friar Laurence grapple with fate as he tells this tragedy that he cannot halt. The shaping of the tale is heavily laden with foreshadowing, such as the Act II puppet play performed by Friar Laurence and his two acolytes, which shows the characters exactly what will unfold, yet there is no way to stop the waves of fate.
Unlike other productions of Romeo and Juliet, weapons are nowhere to be seen, and only an extremely limited number of props are deemed necessary. When props do come into play, their use is a work of brilliant symbolism. When Juliet draws poison from Friar Laurence’s lips, there’s no bottle in sight, yet we feel the dread creeping in as the stage drains of color. After the puppet play foreshadows the death of Mercutio, it is the puppet’s hand itself that strikes and kills Mercutio, and moments later, the cloth soaked with Mercutio’s blood is what Romeo uses to suffocate Tybalt. There’s also Juliet’s note that the nurse must pass to Romeo, but she hands it first to the puppet symbolizing Juliet, who then gives it to Romeo, making it clear who that white slip of paper is from. It’s simply genius creativity that can only come from relying on such minimalism.
Each essential element is the story in this production. From Dominique Drillot’s hues that evoke unspeakable moods, to Jérôme Kaplan’s costumes that shape and sharpen characters in their sumptuous muted tones, to Prokofiev’s lively score, not a single aspect goes to waste; they tell the story just as much as the glorious acting and movement before our eyes. Sergei Prokofiev’s score, first composed in 1935, is the consistent thread continuing through most ballet adaptations of Shakespeare’s tale. But its dissonance and contemporary hue seem particularly destined for Maillot’s rendering. Maillot lets the score play a role of its own, honoring its extraordinary dramatic intensity and soul-stirring beauty. “I’m not trying to match the music. How can you match that music? It’s there. You listen and you cry anyway…that was my point…let the music happen,” he said in 2008 when discussing the death scene in his production, which, unlike other rigorous endings, lets the dancing fall away in lieu of pure emotion and Prokofiev’s chilling devastation.
This season’s run of Romeo et Juliette is, remarkably, the first time that PNB has ever performed the ballet without two of its original leads: James Moore and Noelani Pantastico, whose interpretations and experience now guide those stepping into the role for the first time.
Clara Ruf Maldonado’s debut as Juliet showed a side of her artistry that we’ve never seen in such intensity. In her hands, a very young Juliet brims with all the foolish hope of innocence and a strong-willed spirit that shows us every element of her character. She is real before us, grappling with loss and passion, dancing with fate and all that has been set in motion towards that bitter end. Maldonado’s physical manifestation of emotion and clarity of character is the performance of a lifetime. From the gleeful, light-footed gaiety that glimmers in her eyes, to the haunting visceral rage that breaks forth when there’s no choice but a drastic measure, Maldonado pours all she has into her entrancing portrayal.
Where does one even begin when discussing an artist who has carried a role for nearly twenty years, yet still falls into the story as though it were unfolding here tonight for the first time? The role of Romeo has shaped Lucien Postlewaite’s career, and in turn, watching him return to it again and again has shaped our lives. What a privilege, to see all the wisdom shining through these familiar gestures, to see him refind that transcendent experience, spiraling into the depth of this story with abandon. After seventeen years, this choreography is so deeply written that it is not choreography at all, it sings intuitively through every limb. He floats on a cloud of love with lightfooted gaiety– a poetic soul, a dreamer–and his camaraderie with Mercutio and Benvolio is so dearly innocent that one wishes we could remain there in that simplicity. But, by the time he’s dropped his coat at the sight at his lofted Juliet, they’re not kids anymore, and it’s no longer funny…it’s real, and all other cares come to a still.
Bathed in hazy lavender hues, even the lighting declares that something wonderful is about to unfold with the first tender notes of the balcony pas de deux. Nothing else exists for this moment that Maldonado and Postlewaite share, as they spiral into limitless passion with effortless fluidity until it appears they must share one heart. In 2008, Jean-Christophe Maillot said: “I hope people don’t remember that there was a choreography. I hope that the choreography disappears… I’m just there to make you share a pack of emotions and having dancers onstage believing something so strongly that you can steal from their passion.” Between them, there is no choreography to think of, it is all genuine reactions and soul-filled yearnings. How can you not feel the weight of their story as Romeo draws Juliet up towards his lips with seemingly nothing more than his inspired will? We all know how it will end, yet for one precious moment, the world is luminous and we don’t dare to blink.
It’s been a long time since a new Romeo took to the stage, but from the first glimmers of Dylan Wald’s debut, it was clear that this role had been waiting for him to come along. Bright-eyed and buoyant, his Romeo is a pure soul who can’t wipe the smile off his face, and whose eagerness pervades all he does. Wald always dances with his whole soul, but in this role, he’s somehow extended it further, stretching every element to its height of expression, and proving that he was born to tell tales with his heart upon his sleeve. In his sweeping reach and the necessity of every intuitive step, he simply soars. To see a debut already so deeply interwoven with nuances (his genuine delight and innocent concern, the eyes that find Juliet as though she is the sun, the cheeky little grin that danced across his face as he pulled the sheet over their heads, the pure joy in it all) is a wonder to behold.
In her first playful interaction with the nurse, Angelica Generosa’s exuberant Juliet already won us over. She glimmers with mischievous, spirited joy, and a tender shyness that melts away as soon as Romeo catches her eye. Though radiant joy may be one of Generosa’s calling cards, this ballet has the capacity to reveal an artist’s ability in a way we’ve never seen before. Her silent scream and defiant, explosive power that erupts after refusing to marry Paris showed such expansive desperation that the carefree Juliet of just moments prior was unrecognizable. Later, frozen on relevé, Friar Laurence seemed to dangle her on the edge of a cliff, yet there she remained, a haunting sight of stillness, refusing to budge a millimeter. Through silken beauty and devastating loss, Generosa conjures the kind of genuine character that makes the ending that much more difficult to stomach.
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When Romeo and Juliet first stumble into each other’s presence amidst the flurry of the ball, it’s love at first sight, but by some beautiful twist of intention, their eyes meet as though they’ve been lost and are at last finding one another again. They’re in gleeful disbelief, glowing with love without a single thought of what lies ahead, and we, so deeply enthralled, forget what’s to come too, for in that haze of beauty, time stills. Generosa and Wald push Maillot’s choreography to its full potential, stretching the beauty, holding each gesture, and drawing out every breath until it feels as though they’ve found a way to avoid their tragic end. They are right there with each other, not another thought in the world, potently intentional in every lush step. We could watch them in those dappled hues forever, but when their hands at last must tear themselves from each other’s sweet company, everything that lips could never say is conveyed in their endless reach.
One of Maillot’s greatest gifts is the ability to honor stillness, to not try to dance when it’s not the right thing to be doing. When Romeo returns to Juliet after Tybalt’s death, he cannot believe what his hands have just done, and Wald’s timid remorse, achingly heavy in every step, said more than words ever could. There’s no need for movement when stillness says it all. His physicality, at once weighed down by regret and loss, declares the truth. But despite the hurt, they must go on. When Prokoviev’s icy notes leave Romeo to find the unresponsive Juliet, the whole world shatters, and as Wald dropped to his knees, the agony of his loss was nearly too real to watch. The score rumbles like the earth shaking from the magnitude of loss, for there lies his whole world, gone in an instant. And, like poor Friar Laurence, all we can do is watch, feeling it all.
Maillot, in his minimalistic vision, has chiseled down the character list to the essential personalities that shape the story, and their essence is so strong that from their first gestures, you immediately know them. They show you who they are in defined clarity.
On Opening Night, Kyle Davis made a standout debut as the bold and witty Mercutio. Bright-eyed, nimble, and so very giddy in his boyish charm, his interpretation of this chipper instigator reveals Maillot’s genius in retaining Shakespeare’s immaturity without a single word. Davis glows with the innocence of carefree youth, and his contagious energy was, quite frankly, a hoot to witness.
The Nurse is another one of Maillot’s masterful etchings of character. She is grounded in her heels, full of sentimentality, humor, and life experience that brims through her stylized physicality. Sarah-Gabrielle Ryan’s debut as the temperamental and loving Nurse was splendidly perfect; full of passion and outrageous character until the bitter end, and she carries this well-rounded, humorous character with bold intention and ingenuity. Upon finding Juliet, her begging to the heavens is a haunting sight, heavy with the icy chill of dread portrayed in every fragile step. In a ballet intently focused on gesture and expression, a single glance can change everything, and the smallest choices speak volumes. One of these startling real moments was the choice to make eye contact with Juliet as she quietly tidied away the sheets, conveying the weight of the entire story with a single glance that lingered eerily.
Perhaps one of the most complicated, fascinating characters in Roméo et Juliette is Lady Capulet, pushed to astonishing heights by Elle Macy. Like a spider spinning her daughter’s future, she’s a picture of sleek, refined authority and angular ferocity, a regal mother who acts as a foil for the nurse in her cold command and precision of gesture. Yet in softer moments, there’s a tender joy, a genuine care, that Macy so delicately brings to the light. It is Tybalt’s death that causes her to come undone. She arrives, taut with boiling agony, flinging herself across the stage in wild desperation and hands that reach in a haunting physical manifestation of aching disbelief. She turns to Friar Laurence, raging, but even he cannot help, and so she spirals further, unraveling, out of control, and beside herself with grief.
Macy captures her vivid intensity and striking serpentine physicality like no other, throwing herself into the depths of the role with urgent fervor. She’s a force to be reckoned with in every chilling glance and high-thrown limb, and in her raw final scene of a mother’s unbearable anguish… how can you not feel every ounce? Jean-Christophe Maillot once said: “Suddenly you have a dancer in front of you who goes even further than you imagine yourself," and I believe he may have been prematurely describing this brilliant portrayal of the strong-willed and unforgettable Lady Capulet who leaves all she has upon the stage.
As the tormented Friar Laurence, Christopher D’Ariano carries the weight of recounting this tragedy with deep-rooted instinct. He moves as if pulled by fate, and though his hands cling to the moving walls, desperate to stop the tale in its tracks, there is nothing he can do but watch. Friar Laurence is a master of gesture, with hands that twist along the paths of life, reflecting the division and unity that define the story of Romeo and Juliet, and D’Ariano portrays it all with ineffable intentionality. He’s a pained observer with a haunted look in his eye, and an ache that coils tighter each time a character reaches for him in desperation, and all he can do is watch the tide rise. In the smallest of details– fingers curling around a wall, a guttural contraction, a wince– D’Ariano is a wordless poet, letting us feel his regret in each aching step.
Despite the title, Maillot’s Romeo et Juliette tells a story of much more than just the classic tragedy of juvenile love. It entails an extreme depth of feeling, an emotional and psychological complexity that somehow manages to bring Shakespeare’s text to life with more intensity than those lovely words ever could. What Maillot has captured is how our world feels, even if it's not how it looks (though I wish it would!), and it is real enough that you forget your place, forget you’re watching anything at all as you tumble into the heightened drama and luminous hues filling the stage. Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet was poetry, but this is something higher, something more human that suspends the breath in its soul-grazing beauty.
Jean-Christophe Maillot quotes are taken from Where Snowflakes Dance and Swear by Stephen Manes.
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