HANSEL AND GRETEL
This Brothers Grimm tale is grim indeed, full of images of starvation and gluttony. Hansel and Gretel live in a period of famine, and when they spill a pail of precious milk their stepmother plots to “lose” them in the forest so she’ll have two fewer mouths to feed. The bread crumbs they scatter to find their way home are gobbled up by a bird. But most striking are the witch and her gingerbread house, a vision of delight for the gluttonous and the starving–and children, who are often both. The hungry witch wants to eat the kids, but being something of a gourmand, she stuffs them with food first to make them more delectable. Finally they turn the tables on her and feed her to her own oven.
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Duell has choreographed the stepmother’s pivotal scene remarkably well (and Lisa Cueto danced it very well on opening night). It isn’t easy to convey a decision of that magnitude in dance, but Duell makes us see her anger in her clenched fists and flung arms, her worry in her curled fingers and tiny, rapid steps, the arcing line of her thoughts in her circles around the stage. There are loads of spins and turns and circle dances in Hansel and Gretel, and Duell is clever about making them mean different things. The villagers’ and the father’s turning seems pure physical gaiety, the stepmother’s the motion of her intellect. The bond between the two children is revealed in the little circle they so often form. And encircling ring dances can mean a blessing by benevolent spirits, enchantment by wicked ones, or an everyday sense of community.
