Today I went to see Matthew Bourne's latest offering, a re-telling of the classic tale of 'Sleeping Beauty'. For such a small cast the production was amazing, the dancers incredible and the performance as a whole was really fun and enjoyable. There was also some pretty skilled puppeteering involving a puppet of the baby Princess Aurora and some cleverly concealed puppeteers. Below are some candid shots from rehearsals...(the third is my fave!)
Parts of it were pretty dark. There was a scene where the son of the evil fairy, who had basically kidnapped Aurora (this re-telling is more true to the original than the disney version, no cutesy animals doing the washing up here) was about to sacrifice her with some kind of fairy axe and before that came an amazing yet slightly freaky scene where the whole cast were blindfolded, roaming through the woods while the prince (a gardener in this version) tried to find his princess. He'd had a bit of a rough day of it, when the princess fell under the curse a supposedly 'good' fairy came along and bit him in the neck to turn him into a fairy so that he could live long enough to wake her up again. Bless.
Anyway, it reminded me of this film I saw a while back, also called Sleeping Beauty and also equally dark. An Australian directional debut and original screenplay from Julia Leigh, chosen for the 2011 Cannes Film Festival, Sleeping Beauty tells the story of an undergraduate student who holds down many an odd job in order to pay her fees. She finds herself working in a particularly strange household where she is paid to be asleep in a giant bed while clients can have their way with her. Dark, saucy but also beautifully filmed.
Thinking of this film with its muted tones, saucy glances and silk dresses also reminded me of the miu miu campaign for s/s 2013, sleeping beauties all round.
L U S H