It's the summer of 1963, and 17 year old Frances 'Baby' Houseman is about to learn some major lessons in life as well as a thing or two about dancing.
On holiday in New York's Catskill Mountains with her older sister and parents, 'Baby' shows little interest in the resort activities, and instead discovers her own entertainment when she stumbles upon the staff quarters when an all-night dance party is in full swing. Mesmerised by the raunchy dances move and the pounding rhythms,'Baby' can't wait to be part of the scene, especially when she catches sight of Johnny Castle the resort dance instructor.
'Baby's' life is about to change forever as she is thrown in at the deep end as Johnny's leading lady both on-stage and off with breathtaking consequences. Before they started their collaborative work on the stage show of Dirty Dancing, Eleanor Bergstein circulated the following note amongst her colleagues....
A Note on Approach by Eleanor Bergstein
At the beginning of our production young Baby Houseman, cramming her suitcase with books for a trip to the Catskills, has a presentiment. Before her eyes two-dimensional silhouettes turn into live dancers. One of the dancers is singing "This Magic Moment," whose lyrics refer not only to the romantic adventure that will soon engulf Baby, but to the magical present moment of live theatre.
For years, I resisted doing Dirty Dancing onstage. I didn't want to seem to take advantage of the movie's open-hearted audiences. But year after year I heard stories of people seeing the movie again and again and I began to believe that they did so, not just to watch the movie, but out of a desire to somehow be more present while it was happening – to step through the flat screen and be there at Kellerman's while the story was taking place. If that was the case, its natural form would be live theatre.
I'd never wanted to just slap a movie onstage. Who would want to do that? Now I saw I could go back to the story to discover its natural theatrical realisation. That is to say, theatre is three-dimensional; it happens now. A movie is a two-dimensional picture of things that happened in the past. Movie audiences watch a screen. The theatre audience shares the moment with the actors, dancers, singers and musicians appearing before it.
In re-imagining Dirty Dancing for the theatre, we have tried to take advantage of the risky immediate life of the stage. Live dancing, for instance, has a different effect onstage – a sense of danger and contagious achievement. Our story allows us to approach dance in the theatre in a new way. For many of our characters, dance is how they make meaning in their lives, and so the dancing in our show comes out of story and finds its power in individual expression and discovery. Kate Champion's original choreography uses the movements of everyday life. In Kate's dances, each performer is usually following out an individual personal line, rather than the traditional unison dancing of much musical theatre.
Our production often engages in playful negotiation with the movie. A log in a movie is just a log. A log onstage is a magical property. So in Stephen Brimson Lewis' remarkable design, the appearance of a huge real log is both a surprise and a raising of the performance stakes. Our Baby and Johnny must dance together on that log every night, just as they must execute the famous climactic lift every night.
Theatre has also allowed us to expand our canvas. There are more scenes, more Baby and Johnny scenes exploring their relationship, more scenes about the parents, more about Neil. The action is set more firmly in the summer of 1963, the summer of Martin Luther King's "I Have a Dream" speech. What was happening in the world was integral to what was happening to our people. And there is lots more dancing. Overall, more than 40 percent of the material is new. There are more than 20 new scenes and 25 new songs, most of which are performed live.
We use music the way people use music in real life. Our live musicians (trumpet, trombone, two saxes, bass guitar, electric guitar, drums, percussion and piano) are part of the action – as the Kellerman's band they perform upstairs for the paying guests, then down in the staff quarters they tear off their jackets and jam. (They play "Do You Love Me" while the staff kids dirty dance.) They are also the Sheldrake band. Sometimes they are off stage and provide the ever-present live sound of music that presides over our characters' emotional lives just as music does in real life – the soundtrack of the events of our lives, the events of our hearts. And sometimes, of course, as in real life, it's a scratchy iconic record that does the trick.
Under the guiding hand of our director, James Powell, our story unfolds in the simultaneity of theatre. Something is happening while something else is happening elsewhere at the same time. Everyone is on the same mountain trying to avoid each other, find secret places. One couple loving while another is parting and another quarrels. Lisa puts on layers of petticoats for a date while the kids throw off their work clothes. Baby and Johnny part while around them couples move delicately in each other's arms and Billy, alone, sings "In the Still of the Night" to the stars. Our lighting designer, Tim Mitchell, shares my passion for skies and Johnny Driscoll brings us the excitement of live video feed mixed with video images which give us scope and perspective. Magic hour, my special joy, can go on for as long as it feels in our hearts.
We wanted to create something that could stand on its own both for theatregoers who haven't seen the movie and those who have. Also to bring into the theatre a new audience that has had its most profound experience at movies and rock concerts. To make them understand that live theatre is the best performance experience of all. Thanks for coming along for the ride.
