Whilst Matthew Bourne is perhaps best-known for using the music of popular ballets but doing his own choreography, he has also adapted other art forms, such as films and novels. Whilst The Car Man uses the music of Georges Bizet’s world-renowned opera Carmen, and it contains elements of its plot and themes, it is actually (loosely) based on the novel The Postman Always Rings Twice.
Whilst the French opera is set in a Spanish cigarette factory in the 19th century, Bourne’s ballet is set in a greasy 1950s Midwest garage-diner, but it similarly explores themes such as lust, betrayal and revenge. The quiet lives of a close-knit, small-town community are shattered when a handsome and enigmatic drifter named Luca (the titular car man, played by Will Bozier) arrives to work at the local garage. Luca strikes up a passionate affair with Lana (Cordelia Braithwaite), the sultry and unhappy wife of the garage owner, Dino (Alan Vincent – who originated the role of Luca), while also drawing the attention of Angelo (Leonardo McCorkindale), a gentle outsider, who is romantically involved with Lana’s sweet-natured sister, Rita. Luca’s entangled love triangle spirals into chaos, greed, and murder.
The ballet specifically uses the music of Rodion Shchedrin’s Carmen Suite, a short ballet based on the opera, using and rearranging some of the music – with additional music by Bourne’s frequent collaborator, Terry Davies, based on the rest of Carmen, as the Suite is only around 40 minutes long. Davies’ rearrangements compliment Schedrin’s so well that you cannot tell where each begins and ends.
Bourne’s country-inspired choreography somehow works incredibly well with the continental operatic score but it is the sexier movements which really bring the music to life. Whilst some of Bourne’s ballets prioritise spectacle over technicality, The Car Man offers the best of both, with a stunning set (Lez Brotherston) which, whilst not as spectacular and elaborate as seen in some of Bourne’s other ballets, really transports the audience to the 1950s American South, from the greasy garage-diner to a camp cabaret to a putrid prison. Scene-setting, and transportation, is aided by creative lighting design by Chris Davey, who captures every theme and feeling which Bourne needs him to. Brotherston’s costumes are historically accurate and unashamedly sexy, proudly showing off the ripped bodies of the company.
It is not easy to stand out in a company which is the crème de la crème of contemporary ballet but I must shout out Rory Macleod (“Hot” Rod) and Nikolaa Shikkis (Vito), who are especially striking. In ballet, it is often the women that tantalise and mesmerise, but Bourne offers his men much to play with, especially in Swan Lake, with his all-male swan ensemble, and here in The Car Man, with its sexy, greasy mechanics. Both ballets have homoerotic themes, which Bourne handles with sensitivity and authenticity.
The female characters of The Car Man could be written better. They seem to represent opposite ends of the Madonna-Whore complex. That said, whilst Lana is a classic film noir femme fatale, she is also a victim of domestic abuse. The plot has been changed so that the murder of her husband is not premeditated but a crime of passion, with what starts off as self-defence allowing the pair to realise they can get rid of him to protect Lana from domestic abuse and allow her to be with the man she truly loves. This allows the leads to be more sympathetic, especially when foiled with the brutish Dino, who was booed at the curtain call.
Matthee Bourne’s The Car Man is slick, super stylish, and so so sexy.
JADAR 