A CUBAN ROMEO, AN AGELESS JULIET 
                                              By D. Rane Danubian
        artssf.com, the independent observer of San Francisco Bay Area music and dance 
                                                                 Week of March 10-17, 2006
                                                                  Vol. 8, No. 74
        SAN JOSE---He's the sort of idol matinee audiences drool over---young, sexy, handsome, Latin.
       He's San Jose's Romeo, making a splash in an admirable "Romeo and Juliet" at the Ballet San Jose Silicon Valley. 
       Maykel Solas' US ballet debut on March 9 was a godsend for the company, which in recent years has had  good depth but a dearth of top-line principals. The debut was almost thwarted by interminable visa problems as agencies overseeing homeland insecurity worried over having a Cuban enter the U.S. Never mind that Solas had spent several years dancing with troupes in Mexico and Peru, never mind that the BSJSV already has three other Cubans on its roster. Never mind that if you were spending spies into the U.S., ballet companies would be about the 199th priority for spying upon.
       Well, all's well that ends well. He partnered with cool confidence the star of the show---inevitably Juliet, played opening night by Karen Gabay---and showed a good technique and aerials and a modicum of acting ability that needs to be sharpened before he is a true love-struck Romeo.
       Ominous fears, perhaps as ominous as the feud between the Capulets and Montagues, have been running that this might be the last time a BSJSV repertory program will afford using an orchestra, If so, enjoy it while you can. The familiar figures of the city's symphony are in the pit, Dwight Oltman is conducting, and the grand Prokofiev score emerges superbly throughout the three acts.
       What makes this tragic love story so irresistible is its multinational view of human nature. The (apparently fictional) tale out of Verona, Italy was dramatized by Shakespaere in Britain, then became the substance of arguably the highest single artistic achievement of the highly repressive Soviet-Russian Stalinist regime.  Sergei Prokofiev put aside all his recognizably  Russian music however to create an ardent, magnetic, all-embracing tapestry as melodious as anything in Tchaikovsky, but with more dramatic bite. And here a longtime choreographer out of New York and Cleveland (Dennis Nahat)  and  a company  nearly one-half Latin  bring out a production to do honor to the stage of the venerable Center for the Performing Arts here. 
       The message: the "Romeo and Juliet" ballet is the universal love story, transcending cultures, nationalities, maybe even  internecine feuds. Their double-suicide sacrifice prompted by the hatred within their two clans, played out in the opulence of the Renaissance, is as timeless as it is deeply moving.
       Still, almost every staging has its own take (one ballet book lists five different scenarios, all  more or less Shakespeare-based). This is Nahat's R&J, beefing up melodrama with 19th-century mime and some old naivete straight out of silent film, such as the rival patriarchs in fist-shaking displays. He has made trims (most notably the Gavotte court-dance sequence that we'd  recognize from the Classical Symphony), brought some of the act-three music into act two and, until the last two drawn-out scenes, tightened the drama. This is also a R&J that could play as convent: The scene of the secretly married Romeo and Juliet waking up in bed together could now pass the world's strictest morality code in this bowdlerized version.
        But the story is ardent and deeply touching. This is an R&J you can espouse.
        Sure, there are still some flaws---Juliet receiving suitors in her bedroom, still in her nightie, then running in the street without a wrap;  the ballet  world's longest death scene, after the  fun-loving good buddy Mercutio is  skewered by  the malevolent Tybalt; what sounds like a recording for the mandolin dance; and an expanded Friar Laurence role, played by Nahat himself.
       If you concoct a successful R&J, I guess you may be expected to pad your part on stage. This Nahat does to a generous extreme, grafting on a long pantomime to show Juliet the effect of  the  sleep potion and adding a bell-ringing sequence to summon help in the street scene's mass-battle. Fortunately, he is a far more skilled mimist than bell-ringer. And in a cast where most of the dramatic conviction is carried by a supporting player (Ramon Moreno's Mercutio), Nahat's friar is welcome.
       But this is Juliet's show first and foremost. And after 26 seasons in the company, Karen Gabay can still play the Veronan teenager credibly, from the doll-hugging girl to the consummate wife and lover nobly carrying the weight of tragedy. She dances tirelessly, even though her role bristling with solos and duets is more taxing than the most famous R&J of the past four decades, Kenneth MacMillan's, created for the veteran Margot Fonteyn at the Royal Ballet. Gabay spins with easy grace and has a likable, youthful stage manner, with a veneer of ardor.
       Extremes are at work here. Maximo Califano's Tybalt here comes off as the old-fashioned heavy, an arrogant bully, while Moreno's Mercutio is a high-flying cut-up, vitalizing the stage action again and again in his picaresque way. They enrich the breadth and depth of this tale rich in both subtlety and surface gloss, imparting invaluable lessons in the process.
       One of the most complex shows to hit the CPA with its 17 scenes, this luxurious production was originally designed in Cleveland by David Guthrie (1927-2004), a priceless Nahat collaborator over 35 years.
        Ballet San Jose Silicon Valley's "Romeo and Juliet" with orchestra continues at the CPA, San Jose, through March 12. For info: 866-275-0822, or go on-line.
        ©D. Rane Danubian 2006
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        D. Rane Danubian has been covering the dance and modern-music scene in the San Francisco Bay Area with relish -- and a certain amount of salsa -- for years.
    These critiques appearing weekly (or sometimes semi-weekly, but never weakly) will focus on dance and new musical creativity in performance, with forays into books (by authors of the region), theater and recordings by local artists as well.
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