Danced by Lucia Connolly, Briony constantly flexes and fidgets with her feet, while her arms open and close like windows into the world. Marston repeats these motifs as the ballet progresses, showing how Briony’s childish enthusiasm for creation morphs into wilful, damaging insistence in adulthood, all of which is believably portrayed by Connolly. Meanwhile, Jeraldine Mendoza as Cecilia Tallis—Briony’s sister—and Dylan Gutierrez as Robbie Turner, the housekeeper’s son, provide an almost regal counterpoint to Briony’s impishness. Mendoza loftily floats on pointe past the soft-shoed Connolly and in full few of Gutierrez’s lovestruck Robbie. 

The larger cast portraying the wider family nimbly dart on and off the stage, depicting an entangled web of personal jealousies, desires, and malevolence within the hot confines of an English country house. The subtlety of this intimate world means it can be tricky to navigate exactly which cousin or family friend a new dancer is, and the need to draw out each new interaction sometimes stalls the pacing of the first act. However, the emotions between the characters are clear. Desire is written through arched backs and pained contortions; familial support is found in joyful jumps; and escape from a traumatic event is horribly shown through the victim's flinching hatred of being touched by those around her. The necessity of a slow build-up is retrospectively justified in the first act’s final scene, where all the messiness erupts in a brutal and irredeemable confrontation.  

The perspective widens in the second half from the confines of a small group of people to the impact of the Second World War on a whole nation. Representation becomes abstraction in Michael Levine’s clever stage design: the scenography becomes starker, while the press of bodies increases. We continue to follow Briony, whose burgeoning career as a choreographer, and her time as a nurse, does not seem to alleviate the deepening grief she carries within her. Robbie is now serving in the army, and Cecilia is working as a nurse. The intensity of these different worlds sometimes overlaps, such as when a bar is lowered in one scene to function both as a ballet barre and a trench the soldiers must climb over. The whole Joffrey company are on impressive form when portraying bustling nurses or wounded men on the battlefield, including some particularly athletic inversions and floor work.