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Atonement

When I first read Ian McEwan’s Atonement at university, my lecturer told us that, upon finishing the book, she threw it on the ground. At the time, I read this as her frustration at what happens in the story. Now, looking back, I imagine that it was frustration at the author himself for writing such an ending. 

 

Performance

Joffrey Ballet: “Atonement” by Cathy Marston

Place

Lyric Opera House, Chicago, Illinois, October 17, 2024

Words

RóisínO’Brien

Amanda Assucena, Xavier Núñez, and Alberto Velazquez in “Atonement” by Cathy Marston. Photograph by Cheryl Mann

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The tragic novel, mainly set in England from 1935 and the Second World War, was published in 2001 and adapted into a critically acclaimed film by Joe Wright in 2007. British choreographer Cathy Marston turned her hand to the sorrowful tale earlier this year. A coproduction between Ballet Zürich and Joffrey Ballet, the work premiered in Switzerland in April; this Chicago performance marks its US premiere. The scenario for the ballet is written by Marston and her longtime artistic collaborator Edward Kemp and features a newly commissioned score by Laura Rossi.  

One key difference between the text and the ballet is Marston’s decision to make the main character, Briony Tallis, a choreographer instead of an aspiring playwright. The first act is set in 1935 in the English countryside, during a summer that Briony later describes in a voiceover as “insufferably hot.” As a puckish young artiste, Briony cajoles her family to perform in her ballets. Briony witnesses and—crucially—misunderstands key interactions between the family, their visiting friends, and the family’s servants. This sets in motion a chain of catastrophic events. The second act follows the main characters from the beaches of Dunkirk and London during the Blitz, to the inside of a ballet studio and a hospital ward. Everyone’s lives are irrevocably changed by Briony’s creative meddling.

“Atonement,” then, deals with alternative realities and wish fulfilment driven by grief; with innocence and its undoing; and with simmering sexual tension and class-based oppression. Movement can happily deal with these later themes in physical form, and Marston’s decision to change the main character’s art form to dance allows Marston to perform that act of deceit that McEwan’s novel either performs bravely or cynically, depending on your opinion of the novel. 

Yumi Kanazawa in “Atonement” by Cathy Marston. Photograph by Cheryl Mann

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. 

Amanda Assucena and Alberto Velazquez in “Atonement” by Cathy Marston. Photograph by Cheryl Mann

Rossi’s filmic score is rich and layered, with the swelling strings remaining evocative rather than syrupy. Tinkling piano or pounding trumpets accentuate different emotions or locations. Bregje van Balen’s period-style costumes communicate the wealth of the Tallis family and their peers, through luxurious silks and languidly worn tuxedos. 

Like McEwan’s novel, Marston’s choreographic ending tricks its ‘reader’ (though a bit more juggling is required to keep a live audience captive: a notice in the programme forewarns that there will be an epilogue after the bow). An older Briony, voiced by Kate Strong and performed by Olivia Duryea, reflects on what we have just seen. While some of the monologue slips into grandiose musings, certain stark ‘truths’ are revealed. The stage is stripped back, revealing its mechanical underpinnings through an exposed lighting rig and a pulled-back curtain. This, combined with Marston’s final, touching choreography that sees Briony physically manipulating her family in her self-justified search for atonement, creates a highly emotive closing scene. We might not forgive Briony—but we may understand her grief. 

Róisín O’Brien


Róisín is a dance artist and writer based in Edinburgh, Scotland. She regularly writes for Springback Magazine, The Skinny and Seeing Dance, and has contributed to The Guardian and Film Stories. She loves being in the studio working on a new choreography with a group of dancers, or talking to brilliant people in the dance world about their projects and opinions. She tries not to spend too much time obsessing over Crystal Pite.

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