A review of Ruination by the Royal Ballet and Lost Dog
at The Royal Opera House (Linbury Theatre), London on 29 December 2024
Picture: by Lost Dog Dance
The morning after, energy and joy are still pumping with Ruination yesterday. Rage and determination are thrown at us in a way I have never experienced in dance. With this cast, music and director, it could have been choreographed equally as classical ballet, but Ruination is contemporary dance, with dialogue, pianist and singers on the stage. In Christmas tradition, there is a pantomime dame – Hades, part-dressed in see-through plastic mortuary gown as romantic tutu, pink tutu nets as his boa. How elegantly he mimics Cinderella’s dance at the ball, streamed ‘live’ from the Royal Ballet performance upstairs on the main stage. There are divertissements of tango and flamenco, ‘children’ dressed in animal masks.
The age recommendation is 14, such is the humour and nudity. All three male leads, Jason, Hades, King Aeetes, are objects of ridicule – utterly deluded in their irresistibility. Only the poor brother / bride is gentle and grey. Medea and Persephone never weaken, their truth and passion reverberate from the walls and ceilings of the underground auditorium.
The setting is the entrance to the underworld with side doors and a tall staircase leading down from life. The water dispenser is filled with the elixir of oblivion to consume if you so choose before passing to the other side. A skeletal judge in long wig is perched at the back, with Hades and his wife-niece Persephone acting as prosecution and defence. Jason is the lead prosecution witness in the trial of Medea. At stake is custody of their two children in the afterlife.
Why had the Olympian gods not heard of Medea, granddaughter of Helios, or her supposed crime, startling by divine and mortal standards alike? Wouldn’t the tales have spread? It was described in the Histories 2500 years ago and embellished by Euripides, eager to create a monster by which all mothers would be judged. Ovid perpetuated the myth of ‘wicked’ Medea for dramatic poetic effect as an unexplained metamorphosis, painting her vengeful, steeping her sword in the blood of her children[1]. Then the violent condemnation by Seneca, no doubt to assuage Nero’s guilt about murdering his own mother. No leading voice in Rome was female.
Persephone’s mother, Demeter, is praised in this performance for never abandoning the search for her daughter after she was snatched by Hades. And so Medea has to escape to rescue her sons. The infinity of the Styx and formal ferryman rules are borne out in a deeply engaging scene, where Medea tries to swim, is submerged, recovers, over and over, reaching forward before being washed up, the other dancers in black bearing her on the stormy waves at night. This choreography draws us into the depth of Medea’s love for her children.
Some dancers seem never to leave the stage or rest. A few change roles and the singers alternate from Latin requiem to rock and finally gospel. It is a heart-warming tragedy for lovers of dance and music alike.
The last chance to see Ruination in London is Saturday 4 January 2025 before it heads to Paris. I cannot wait to see it again, especially if the cast is again led by Hannah Shepherd as Medea and Jean Daniel Brousse as Hades.
Next to rewrite Cherubini’s opera, then all the other plays and films and artwork glorifying this dangerous male fantasy. Only generations from now might young people recognise the prejudicial intent behind classical, elitist depictions of women.
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Tracey Chippendale-Gammell
(The Words Out Loud Chichester group have invited women writers and creatives to attend an International Women’s Day event in Chichester, West Sussex on Saturday 8 March 2025, to speak out for famous women characters and retell their male-chosen endings. Happy Endings For Her, Submissions | Words Out Loud)
[1][1] Metamorphosis Book 7, 396
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