Wheeldon’s wonderful world of Shakespeare: ‘The Winter’s Tale’ for ABT at Segerstrom

Dance

Springtime in Southern California brings big, full-evening ballets to Segerstrom Center for the Performing Arts in Costa Mesa. We last experienced Christopher Wheeldon’s work with American Ballet Theatre in his Like Water for Chocolate in 2023. Now again, the British choreographer draws inspiration from yet another literary source: a Shakespearean comedy: The Winter’s Tale in its U.S. premiere by American Ballet Theatre.

The Winter’s Tale is a cautionary dramatic exploration of the different types of love – between friends, between lovers, and between family members – and the consequences of not valuing or nurturing those connections.

Please enjoy a beautiful review of the ballet dating from 2014, in which our foreign correspondent, Candace Allen, reviewed The Royal Ballet’s initial staging of the work. Click on the image below for Candace’s review.

Wheeldon followed his successful career as a dancer for both the Royal Ballet and New York City Ballet, with a wide-ranging choreographic career including Tony Award winning work on An American in Paris and MJ, on Broadway two of his canon that draw on highly differing styles of dance.

The Winter’s Tale reunites Wheeldon’s creative team, scenic and costume designer Bob Crowley and composer Joby Talbot, with the world-class dancers of American Ballet Theatre.

photocredit: Hee Seo and Isaac Hernández, THE WINTER’S TALE, Quinn Wharton, for ABT.

For ABT’s The Winter’s Tale casting of principal roles, click here:
Thursday, April 3 at 7:30 PM 
Aran Bell* (Leontes)
Devon Teuscher* (Hermione)
Catherine Hurlin* (Perdita)
Carlos Gonzalez* (Florizel)
Cory Stearns* (Polixenes)
Christine Shevchenko* (Paulina)   
Saturday, April 5 at 7:30 PM
Aran Bell (Leontes)
Devon Teuscher (Hermione)
Catherine Hurlin (Perdita)
Carlos Gonzalez (Florizel)
Cory Stearns (Polixenes)
Christine Shevchenko (Paulina)
Friday, April 4 at 7:30 PM
Herman Cornejo* (Leontes)
Cassandra Trenary* (Hermione)
Skylar Brandt* (Perdita)
Jake Roxander* (Florizel)
James Whiteside* (Polixenes)
Claire Davison* (Paulina)    
Sunday, April 6 at 1:00 PM
Herman Cornejo (Leontes)
Cassandra Trenary (Hermione)
Skylar Brandt (Perdita)
Jake Roxander (Florizel)
James Whiteside (Polixenes)
Claire Davison (Paulina) 
Saturday, April 5 at 2:00 PM
Isaac Hernández* (Leontes)
Hee Seo* (Hermione)
Isabella Boylston* (Perdita)
Joseph Markey* (Florizel)
Thomas Forster* (Polixenes)
Courtney Lavine* (Paulina) 

The Winter’s Tale, U.S. Premiere | American Ballet Theatre | Segerstrom Center for the Arts | Apr 3 – 6

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Into the woods, with French movie-thriller ‘Misericordia’

Film · Reviews

It’s no news to anyone — we’ve known it since “Hansel & Gretel.” Bad things happen in the woods. To prove that that essential truth has gone unchanged since the days of Grimm’s fairy-tales, the woods are the chosen terrain in which auteur Alain Guiraudie stages the central plot turn of his latest movie, Misericordia (2024). The moody and intriguing thriller opens this Friday at Laemmle Theatres.

The event, and its aftermath, are delivered by a klatch of French character actors playing rural townsfolk who manage, over the course of a 90-minute film, to spin their own web of suspicion, blame, guilt, projection, and paranoia.

Misericordia takes place in one of those cookie-cutter, gray French villages where ya’d think ya’d have some privacy. Well, you don’t … so … into the woods you go! Back in town, everyone is learning your business faster than you can even make it up.

catherine frot, david ayala, pastis bottle

A stranger, Jérémie (a well-cast Félix Kysyl), enters the villagers’ midst. It’s revealed that he’s less a stranger than a former resident on a return visit. His vibe is earnest as he consoles the widow of the dearly departed, his former boo, mentor, and possible lover. The now-lonely widow (Catherine Frot) takes Jérémie in — to the considerable displeasure of her son, Vincent (Jean-Baptiste Durand, in a jarring, nuance-lacking performance). Jérémie also reconnects with a former pal, a big-guy messy bachelor marvelously played by David Ayala. Enter the town curé, Father Grisolles, oozing sexual repression and possible perversity. (And yet, his role evolves into the film’s moral center.) Each of these characters in Guiraudie’s carefully scripted yarn manifests, or hints at, having the hots for one another.

Misericordia is a pleasure to view, studded as it is with lovely natural mountains, forests, and craggy country roads. Its oh-so-French lines of dropped dialogue hang in space in all ambiguity. A black-humor bit concerning the chewy, succulent items that pop up in the forest’s dark shadows, morels, gives a welcome change of pace to an otherwise pretty gnarly tale.

Misericordia | Laemmle Theatres, opens Friday


Arts journalist Debra Levine is founder/editor/publisher of arts●meme.

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Dance
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Dance
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Film
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