The New Yorker?s Joan Acocella checks out Les Ballets Trockadero de Monte Carlo:
?The Trocks? business is comedy, and the basic joke, of course, is that men are dancing women?s roles. Just to see those size-10 point shoes, those yawning armpits, that chest hair peeping up over the bodices?I do not mention what greets you when the ballerina turns and her skirts fly up?is to laugh. Then, there are what you could call the vaudeville gags, excellent ones. (The cavalier and his lady, their dance completed, exit demurely; a moment later, you hear a crash and a scream from the wings.) At a higher level are the jokes specifically about ballet. Have you ever wondered, while watching Michel Fokine?s ?Les Sylphides,? what those dainty, fingery, seeming-to-listen or seeming-to-whisper hand gestures are about? Well, so have the Trocks, and when, in their version of ?Sylphides,? Margeaux Mundeyn (Yonny Manaure) goes into this business, the corps dancers look at her as if she were mad.?
I?m looking forward to seeing the Trocks at Cal Performances in May, but if you can?t wait that long for a good laugh, they?re also playing the Marin Center (if you click, scroll down till you see the men in tutus) on January 16th.
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