One of Pink’s realstrengths as a maker of story ballets is his insistence on creatingpsychologically detailed characters and credible relationships that dancers caninhabit with integrity.
“You don’t have to leaveyour home to be in Neverland,” Pink says. “The children in the story know that:Even though they’ve never been there, they’ve been there. What happens at homematerializes in Neverland.”
When I ask Pink if he’sbeen inspired by any of the existing ballet versions of the story, he wavesthem off as “little flowers and dancing fish.” He’s worked for five years onthis ballet with his longtime friend and collaborator, the composer PhilipFeeney, and their only source has been the original J.M. Barrie play. They’veset the ballet in Londonat the onset of World War II to suggest the haunting connection Barrie himselfmade between the Lost Boys and all the young British soldiers doomed to nevergrow up.
Feeney’s score isthrough-composed, so every moment has its perfect music. This means frequentchanges of meter, sometimes bar by bar, a challenge to the orchestra anddancers.
PlayingPan
As usual, the roles aredouble cast. Marc Petrocci and Michael Linsmeier will alternate as Pan.Petrocci, with his fine-boned, sprite-like allure and fire, seems born for therole; and indeed, Pink set it on him. Linsmeier, whose inwardness can also hintat otherworldliness and self-possession, is an appealing alternative. Both havetechnique to burn. They are different, they agree, and “what’s great aboutMichael Pink is that as long as it’s honest, as long as it communicates andlooks good, he doesn’t care how you do it.”
I ask them if they lovePan. “It’s exciting to play a character that’s so innocent,” Linsmeier says.“He only means for people to have fun. He sees evil, but he doesn’t let itaffect him, which is something to be greatly admired. I’m trying to do that inmy own life.”
Linsmeier also speakswith moving frankness of a connection he felt in rehearsal between Peter’spride at bringing Wendy to Neverland and his own when he first brought hisgirlfriend to his parents’ Wisconsin dairyfarm.
Petrocci’s mother rentedthe Mary Martin version for him as a child. He liked Pan, and “now I understandthe underlying layers. But playing Pan, I try to forget all that. You can’t beas free as Pan if you’re thinking about the implications.”
Petrocci loves twomirrored moments in Pink’s version when Wendy and Pan look into one another’seyes. The first: when she learns to fly and “her energy actually lifts Pan”;the second: when she decides to go home, and “all I see is how much she’staking from me.”
But the most emotionalmoment for him is when Tinkerbell comes back to life. “Pan doesn’t know whatdeath is,” he says. “All he knows is that he has to save her. He has to dosomething, and keep doing it, until enough people believe in fairies to saveall fairies everywhere.” Petrocci wouldn’t reveal what that something is, exceptthat it isn’t clapping.
Actually, both men takepart in each performance: One plays Pan; the other plays his shadow, and alsohandles the ropes that fly the other one around the stage. Just as when theyexecute a normal ballet lift, the “carrier” has to know the dance precisely.Here, of course, the lifts are perilously high. I watched a “flight and fight”rehearsal in which Pan battles Hook from midair. It’s harder than you mightimagine, due to “inertia and pendulum”: The faster the flight, the farther thedancer swings on stopping. Thatafternoon, Petrocci frequently “pendulumed” into the ship’s mast.
MilwaukeeBallet’s world premiere of PeterPan takes place May 13-16 at the Marcus Centerfor the Performing Arts.
