| I was baffled and bored by that ballet myself. But I was sitting in the middle of a group of high school students and the dance was the part of the production they liked the most. Otherwise, they were mostly bored, although some were engaged and others not. This was a mixture of both boys and girls. The girls seemed more bored than the boys, which I thought was interesting. Later, thinking back on the production (and actually the material itself), this is more of a play about the hopes and fears of men and how they interact with one another to get what they want. The women might be the target of these interactions, but the hopes and dreams of the women are limited and not very deep. So, you have Curly vs. Jud over Laury and Will and Ali over Ado, plus the farmers and the cowboys (men) fighting for prominence. There is almost no conflict among the women, except for Aunt Eller who serves as the arbiter of frontier social behavior and justice. The boys in that high school group seemed to be engaged in sorting out all the behavior clues of the men. The girls were mostly thrilled by that "dream" dance, which, other than Aunt Eller, provided the only expression of female strength. |
