Snow White/Snow White: The Sacrifice review – puts the Grimm back in the tale

★★★☆☆ / ★★★★☆Sadler’s Wells East, LondonBalletLorent stages two dance-theatre versions of the fairytale – one for all the family, another for mature audiences – but both are attuned to its horror and weirdnessIt’s not your Disney version, this. In fact, BalletLorent’s production has less in common with a sweet-singing Rachel Zegler, more with Demi Moore in The Substance. And it reminds you that, in the version originally collected by the Brothers Grimm at least, Snow White is hardly a kids’ story, what with all the attempted murder and juicy cannibalism. So choreographer Liv Lorent offers up two versions: a family show for all ages, and an “after dark” version for audiences of 16 and over, which is the more successful. There is actually not so much difference between the two though. The adult version is sexier, fleshier, a bit more on the nose, a shade more violent (not least in the scene of a smarting bikini wax). But even the family version may not be for younger kids, and it perhaps speaks less directly to them than to the middle-aged women in the audience, since it’s the horror story of a once beautiful woman seeing her currency crash. In some tellings, the queen dies in childbirth and it’s a wicked stepmother who has a vendetta against Snow White’s youthful beauty. In this one, using Carol Ann Duffy’s knowing rewrite, as in the Grimms’ 1812 version, it’s Snow White’s own mother who is out to get her, which makes the whole thing darker still.The Queen (Caroline Reece) gazes into her mirror, intoxicated by her reflection, and teaches Snow White (Virginia Scudeletti) the importance of looking “gorgeous at all times”. There are rich themes: vanity, jealousy, rejection, loneliness, with all the drama magnified by Doctor Who composer Murray Gold’s huge score which soars and swells and galvanises, while Lorent’s small company loop and swoop to match the surging music. There’s a great set, cleverly designed by Phil Eddolls, based on a giant dressing table which swings around to turn into a forest, and the mirror, embodied by the sharply angular moves of dancer Aisha Naamani enrobed in metallic silver. Instead of dwarves we have a clan of miners, and a nice juxtaposition of them doing the backbreaking work of digging for jewels while Snow White and her mother do the hard graft of beautification with all its undignified scrubbing and depilation. Continue reading...

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