Bringing Ian McEwan’s novel 'Atonement' to the stage
Vicki Crain, Better
This week, The Joffrey Ballet brings Atonement to the Lyric Opera stage. This is the first ballet adaptation of Ian McEwan’s best-selling novel turned Academy Award®-winning film, choreographed by Cathy Marston in a co-production with Ballet Zürich.
Make It Better (MIB) spoke with Joffrey’s Mary B. Galvin Artistic Director, Ashley Wheater MBE, last week before the company moved to the stage for technical rehearsals before opening night.
MIB: This is the fifth time Marston has worked with the Joffrey, so her work is well-known to Chicago audiences. How did you two meet, and how did the idea for Atonement come about?
AW: I met Cathy a couple of years before we did her Jane Eyre in 2019. I had been aware of her for a long time. We met in London for breakfast, and we just got on really well. I asked what other things she was interested in and she said a book that she’s always wanted to do was Atonement. She wanted to create it on Joffrey, but then she was named Ballet Director and Chief Choreographer at Ballet Zürich, so it made sense to do a co-production.
MIB: How is Atonement similar or different from other Marston’s ballets we may have seen?
AW: Cathy created Of Mice and Men on the Joffrey in 2022. That was created here completely in the studio, so this process was different. Cathy started here in Chicago doing a workshop with the Joffrey dancers. Then, she went to Zürich to take over the company. In her first year, she found time to finish the ballet which premiered in Zürich this past April. She has made some adjustments since the premiere, and it’s much tighter. I’m really happy to see it come to life.
Atonement is a complex story. How much of the story can you get across to the audience [so] that they understand? Act 1 is one part of the story, but it is so important because all the consequences happen in Act 2. You get to know the characters in the first act; then, the second act is much more episodic. Cathy arranged it much like the screenplay, but instead of the main character, Briony, being a writer, here she’s a choreographer. That makes total sense to me because a choreographer is a writer of dance.
We see the story unfolding, we see them go to war, we see them come back, we see them living with the fallout from the war. It ends…and then we get the epilogue which tells us what really happened. There is a text woven into the original score. That is old Briony reflecting. The question is, can you atone? If you change the story, does that change the outcome? Does that make you feel better? It’s an open question. There is no answer. It’s heartbreaking.
MIB: Marston is known for creating narrative ballets and novel adaptations that rely on acting abilities as well as dancing. How did you go about casting?
AW: It helps that Cathy has worked here a lot and knows the company really well. The dancers are not afraid to go out there and really find the nuances in within a character. We have three principal casts, but what I’ve seen in rehearsal is the entire company getting more and more into it. The ballet demands really distinct characterization of who these people are. We need to care about them, whether we like them or not…to have a visceral reaction to them. It really is a piece of theater.
MIB: Atonement opens Joffrey’s 69th season and your 18th season in artistic leadership. You’re known for focusing on storytelling and the humanity in the characters. What is the focus for this season?
AW: We keep wanting to push the boundaries. The company is just really having a success. They are dancing so well right now. They can go from something as deep as Atonement to something equally as wonderful as Alice (Christopher Wheeldon’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland). Where the company is today…there’s nothing they can’t do. That’s a beautiful place to be where they can be challenged. Our audience can be challenged. We’re all growing together. We’re all on this journey together.
MIB: What do you want the audience to take away or know going into Atonement?
AW: I think they’ll find their way into it, but it does take some concentration. It is going to engage, but you have to pay attention. The reward is the reward.