More Manon than Juliet...

There’s a lot of hype over Francesca Hayward. Damn right too. She’s a beautiful dancer and deserves to be noticed. A lot of media exposure and hype, however, can lead to very high expectations which I find quite dangerous with the arts. I went to see Robert Plant last year and after endless summers listening to Led Zepplin and continuously being told by my parents what a rock God he is, when he stepped on the stage banging a drum and left it only having played two Zepplin songs, I was left feeling pretty disappointed. It happens a lot with ballet too and after reading countless interviews and seeing a face in the press there is often a certain expectation that this dancer is going to be pretty bloody amazing. It’s what I see happening with Misty Copeland. Nice dancer but with a fantastic agent. Francesca Hayward is similar. For weeks now the hype building up over this lovely dancer has meant that her debut as Juliet in the Royal Ballet’s current run, was probably the performance I was most intrigued to see. I loved her in Alice and Wonderland and have heard that her Manon was incredible and pair this with the interviews, I’m thinking to myself, what quite happened there with Juliet? Technically she was flawless but dramatically it didn’t really add up and I was unmoved and quite surprised when it was all over. The thing is with Frankie, she really looks the part of Juliet. She’s petite enough to pass as fourteen and her prettiness makes the whole love at first sight thing totally believable. The main problem with her portrayal, however, was that although she looked like a child, her manner was a bit too grown up.

Hayward’s Juliet is self-aware, knowing and a bit too self-assured for my liking. When she first meets Paris she teases him with her body language and through her eyes. It would be perfect for Manon, but not for Juliet. I actually whispered to my mum during this scene ‘She’s Manon’ and I still believe this. She’s going to be a brilliant Mary Vetsera too. She has everything to depict MacMillan’s darker women, who ooze sex and intelligence and are composed of a dangerous demeanour. Francesca is dangerous, she has a wonderful ability to be dainty but strong. I love watching her dance but as I say, to flirt with Paris when you’re supposedly a sheltered fourteen year old who has never encountered men other than Dad and Cuz, seems a bit too confident and out of place. This interpretation also doesn’t bode well to make her relationship with Romeo at all believable. I felt towards the end that actually Romeo had just been another in a string of romances, like you kind of do with Manon and Des Grieux. If you start off as a knowing Juliet by the time you meet Romeo, the eye-locking moment isn’t as convincing and you feel a bit deflated as an audience member. I also felt the depth and dramatic variation needed to convincingly portray Juliet’s character and build up her journey from girl to woman was lacking here which did take me by surprise. I had binoculars with me and even through the unforgiving close up lense, there wasn’t the depth in character that I was hoping for. The potion scene didn’t bring me to the edge of my seat, or rather, to the edge of my standing position and the tomb scene didn’t swell a lump in my throat or bring a tear to my eye. I may sound harsh, but this is art and while it doesn’t move some it will move others.

Perhaps there was also something disjointed due to the partnership between Hayward and her Romeo, played by Matthew Golding. He’s a fine dancer, one of the best actually, but he seemed a wrong fit for Romeo. Again dramatically there wasn’t too much on offer although his tomb scene was pretty wonderful (apart from a premature death leaving Prokfiev’s music to awkwardly fill a long gap) and he definitely brought the passion while he was throwing Juliet’s body around. I think the problem here is that the chemistry was slightly absent between the two and while Frankie looks every bit the young Juliet, Golding looked slightly too mature to balance it out. There also wasn’t enough characterisation built up for the final tragedy to make hearts break; for example, the banter with Romeo’s friends, Mercutio and Benvolio, wasn’t present and I didn’t notice that they had adeep and lasting friendship. Mercutio’s death is the catalyst which turns the rest of the ballet into a tragic one, however, if we don’t really feel that he and Romeo were that close then we also don’t really think it makes sense that he avenges his death or in fact dies with his Juliet as a result of this decision. MacMillan follows Shakespeare in that every detail is in place so that the final tomb scene really leaves you shaken and with your heart broken. Unfortunately if these details are rushed over, one can only smile as the curtain falls and leave unmoved and unchanged.

It’s important to note after all of my woeful sentences, however, that Frankie is an exceptional dancer. She has a lovely technique and her style is graceful and fast. I think with more experience she could rival the Nunez’s and Osipova’s in the company with her technical gift. The dramatic side of things does need to develop more, but perhaps it is only in this role as she’s got it right in everything else that she’s done. I expect some serious things from Hayward and to already have this much potential at such a young age, will be a sign of the greatness we can look forward to.