Snow White/Ballet Preljocaj, Sadler’s Wells - review

Angelin Preljocaj’s Snow White is exciting the farther it gets away from that more balletically familiar fairytale, The Sleeping Beauty. It’s a shame then that he makes so many early nods to that tamer tale of sexual awakening, creating a court scene that runs out of steam, and diluting the Oedipal jealousy of the wicked stepmother by making her entrance so much like that of the vengeful fairy Carabosse, all threats and stamping.

Designer Jean Paul Gaultier puts Patrizia Telleschi’s stepmother in thigh-high stiletto boots and a cutaway leather bustier, while Preljocaj gives her a drag-queen strut and karate kicks that suggest his idea of pure evil would be a Grace Jones tribute act.

Eventually though, in a psychological and sartorial masterstroke, she strips away the fetish gear to reveal a dishevelled old woman. Then, having become what she fears and can never forgive Snow White for reminding her of, she orally rapes her stepdaughter, jamming an apple into her mouth so that she can yank her like someone gaffing a fish.

When Preljocaj lets his imagination run away with him like this, the results are spectacular. The dwarfs are abseiling miners, gliding and twirling on ropes across a sheer vertical cliff face.

When they lay out Snow White’s body (marmoreal, and loosely wrapped by Gaultier in a white nappy with a dangling tail), the prince does not wake her with a kiss. Instead, Sergio Diaz unwittingly dances the life back into a limp Virginie Caussin, flailing her around his body, dropping her from limb to limb, even launching himself in despair from the springboard of her bent-over back.

Snow White/Ballet Preljocaj runs until tomorrow (0844 412 4300, sadlerswells.com).

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