Dance

Romeo and Juliet, MacRobert Centre, Stirling

Mary Brennan

THREE STARS

Since the late 1930's, the plight of Shakespeare's star-crossed lovers has been like a magnet to choreographers worldwide. Most of them have turned, with understandable enthusiasm, to Prokofiev's score which - once his notion of a happy ending had been dispensed with - fully captures the pomp and pathos, the youthful passion and rigid vendetta at the heart of this tragic romance. On paper, Ballet West's production probably knows what's meant to happen. On-stage, their version falls short of such ambitions simply because - even with professional guest artists helping out in various leading roles - this Taynuilt-based dance school just doesn't have the personnel to carry off the full character of the narrative. Frankly, it doesn't have the choreography either.

What Daniel Job has put together is, shall we say, "horses for courses". This Verona is unnaturally short of men. Does it matter? Well it reduces the Act One rivalry between Montagues and Capulets to a brief clash of foils - and much of that is Tybalt's childishly petulant swishing of his rapier. The macho swagger of the Capulet's ball has to give way to Juliet's girl friends in a cluster while the colourful Act Two festival has cohorts of folk-dancing maidens who more or less hop on the spot to some of the most exhilaratingly dance-y music in the ballet canon.

You glimpse where the show thought it could go in the Romeo and Juliet of Jonathan Barton and Sara-Maria Barton - but while their partnership makes polished work of the duets, as real-life brother and sister the relationship is, of necessity, passionless. At best, it's a serviceable production. The programme, by the way, is a £10 statement of glossy aspiration.