STAGE: Gardenia at Sadler's Wells
60-something queers share their stories.
Jane Czyzselska
Pink Paper Magazine
1 July 2011
http://news.pinkpaper.com/Feature.aspx?id=2350 (http://news.pinkpaper.com/Feature.aspx?id=2350)
Inspired by a Dutch documentary about the last days of a ->-bleeped-<- cabaret in Barcelona, Gardenia is an invitation to learn about and reflect on the lives of a similar group of performers, some transgender, some ->-bleeped-<-, who are now in their 60s and 70s.
The production opens with Vanessa Van Durme, Belgium's first transsexual singing a mournful version of Somewhere over the rainbow. Van Durme, who is the show's co-director alongside Frank Van Laeke then invites the audience to stand in memory of those who are long gone but who once also graced the stages of cabaret clubs.
Gardenia – review
Sadler's Wells, London
Luke Jennings
The Observer, Sunday 3 July 2011
http://www.guardian.co.uk/stage/2011/jul/03/gardenia-review-jennings (http://www.guardian.co.uk/stage/2011/jul/03/gardenia-review-jennings)
Alain Platel is a choreographer and the founder of the Belgian new wave dance company Les Ballets C de la B, and Frank van Laecke is a theatre director. Together they have created Gardenia, a work inspired by the film Yo soy así, which documents the last days of a ->-bleeped-<- cabaret in Barcelona. Gardenia assembles a cast of seven drag artists, all of them retired and most of them in their 70s, a woman in her 40s and a younger male dancer.
We first encounter the cabaret artists as men, dressed in dapper, dated suits. They are introduced by the transsexual actress Vanessa Van Durme, a gravel-voiced Baby Jane.
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DANCE REVIEW - GARDENIA: LES BALLETS C DE LA B SADLER'S WELLS THEATRE, LONDON EC1
Sunday July 3,2011
By Jeffery Taylor
http://www.express.co.uk/posts/view/256404/Dance-review-Gardenia-Les-Ballets-C-de-la-B-Sadler-s-Wells-Theatre-London-EC1 (http://www.express.co.uk/posts/view/256404/Dance-review-Gardenia-Les-Ballets-C-de-la-B-Sadler-s-Wells-Theatre-London-EC1)
UNDERSTATED misery is the worst and Sadler's Wells boss Alistair Spalding found the perfect red herring as a lead into the misery of a large percentage of the population.
Curtain up on a show about redundant ->-bleeped-<-s reveals seven elderly men, a youth and a "real" girl (we never really know) all formally dressed in suit and tie.
The tall, gaunt one (Vanessa Van Durme) croaks a husky and very depressed version of Over the Rainbow. They all join in the gloomy chorus.
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Les Ballets C de la B, Sadler's Wells, London
Somewhere over the rainbow, there are men in trousers
Reviewed by Jenny Gilbert
Sunday, 3 July 2011
http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/theatre-dance/reviews/les-ballets-c-de-la-b-sadlers-wells-london-2305786.html (http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/theatre-dance/reviews/les-ballets-c-de-la-b-sadlers-wells-london-2305786.html)
Platel was clearly aiming for a similar level of insight with his latest piece, Gardenia. Its cast of retired gents in their sixties and seventies all enjoy dressing as women, and have done for most of their adult lives. One or two have had the op and in their resumés mention a husband. The lead character, the elegantly built Vanessa Van Durme, has enjoyed a decade or more as a well-known actress and television presenter.
Inspired by a documentary about the closing of a ->-bleeped-<- cabaret in Barcelona, Platel and his co-director Frank van Laecke present these variously paunched and crumpled specimens as their present selves, caught between a rock and a hard place in their struggle to maintain a presence in regular society, yet plagued with longing for happier, lipsticked days when their own amateur cabaret impersonations of Liza Minelli or Marlene Dietrich looked less absurd and desperate.