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Dance, Desire and Anxiety in Early Twentieth-Century French Theater: Playing Identities (review)

This book analyses key collaborative productions of the kind pioneered by Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes, performed in Parisian theatres from 1911 to 1924. It provides valuable information about the nature and impact of performances by Ida Rubenstein, the Ballets Russes, and the much less well-known Ballets Suédois, and also offers original interpretations of their cultural significance. The first two chapters focus on particular works, starting with Ida Rubenstein in Le Martyre de Saint Sébastien (1911), with libretto by Gabriele d’Annunzio and music by Debussy, intertextually juxtaposed with Valéry’s text, L’Âme et la danse. Chapter 2 discusses Les Mariés de la tour Eiffel (1921) by the Ballets Suédois, in conjunction with analysis of Cocteau’s writings. Chapter 3 begins with the 1913 Ballets Russes’ production of Le Dieu bleu and their 1917 Parade, continuing with the Ballets Suédois’s Within the Quota and La Création du monde (1923). Chapter 4 looks at L’Homme et son désir (Ballets Suédois, 1924) and Les Biches and Le Train bleu (Ballets Russes, 1924). In Chapter 5, the Ballets Suédois’s final stage production, Relâche (1924), is discussed in detail. As befits his topic, Batson’s analyses span a diversity of theatrical media: libretto, mise en scène, costume, music and choreography. The textual element is given particular emphasis, as represented by Cocteau’s writings and Valéry’s L’Âme et la danse, in addition to libretti. Batson’s readings of theatrical productions and their contexts are informed by a rich substrate of theoretical approaches, and discussions of theoretical writings — by Barthes, Bhabha, Butler, for instance — are interposed at relevant junctures throughout the book. He argues that these collaborative theatrical performances both mediated and produced cultural ‘drives’ grounded in desires and fears concerning French national and sexual identities. The meanings of the performances were constructed through interactions with the desires and anxieties of their audiences, who saw their own interrogations of national and sexual identities being played out on stage. For instance, L’Homme et son désir was criticized for ‘non-masculine’ performances, which lacked sufficient Frenchness. By contrast, hyper-masculine performances (which Batson, dialoguing with Butler, theorizes in terms of melancholia) were warmly received, demonstrating post-war audiences’ desire for even a ‘pasted-on’ masculinity. In the same year, Le Train bleu both problematized heterosexuality and maintained its semblance, thereby pointing up the instability of the audience’s own postures. Batson has brought to light fascinating and little-known material, especially in the case of the Ballets Suédois. His book is very carefully researched, and his interpretations are stimulating. His core arguments might perhaps have been more clearly progressed throughout the book, but this is undoubtedly a very significant contribution to dance scholarship and cultural history.