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Akram Khan’s Creature at Sadler’s Wells review: ENB’s show is impressive but oof! It’s joyless

 (Ambra Vernuccio)
(Ambra Vernuccio)

Akram Khan’s Creature opens with a historic voiceover – President Nixon addressing the astronauts who reached the moon in 1969. It’s a stirring moment, but almost immediately composer Vincenzo Lamagna distorts and shreds it – that era’s bright optimism has long rusted over. In Khan’s grimly imagined future, humanity has trashed this planet and space is just a fresh opportunity for exploitation.

Hope long ago left the building. In an arctic research station, fallen into disrepair, a military brigade prepares a new space mission, aiming to colonise the final frontier. Khan draws on Mary Shelley’s novels Frankenstein (vaunting experimentation, forlorn results) and The Last Man (pandemic dystopia), but the narrative most closely parallels Georg Büchner’s expressionist play Woyzeck. Instead of Büchner’s tormented soldier, Khan gives us the abused Creature, subjected to callous experiments to see if he can endure frozen conditions to indicate how humanity might fare in the hostile beyond.

Khan’s regular designers seal us in a harsh environment. Tim Yip (of the film Hidden Tiger, Crouching Dragon) builds a high windowless wooden walls, while Michael Hulls sends spars of wintry light through the gaps, pinning the story in cold greys and dingy amber.

In Creature, Khan created the part of a lifetime for Jeffrey Cirio. Now with Boston Ballet, Cirio returns to ENB, reprising the role in one of three casts. As the bare-chested Creature, he judders and glitches, yanks his sinews to their furthest extent as a victim of the merciless story. Yet he also spins, skips, irradiated by wonder and curiosity. The cruel paradox of the tale is that Creature is the only character who truly feels the miracle of a journey into space, yet is excluded from the voyage.

 (Ambra Vernuccio)
(Ambra Vernuccio)

Unusually, the ballet’s central relationship isn’t primarily romantic. Creature is drawn to his keeper Marie (a poised yet heartfelt Erina Takahashi) in mutual concern: the specimen and the skivvy. Ecological and emotional resources are alike depleted here – only splinters of tenderness remain. It often feels as if all the suppressed feeling in this loveless world passes through the vulnerable, undefended Creature.

Scenes build remorselessly towards distress. The brigade runs on group think and arrogance (ENB’s corps is horribly well drilled, stalking and grabbing). Obedience is enforced by Fabian Reimair’s brutish Major, who grabs dissenters by the throat and squeezes, while the experiments are led by Sarah Kundi’s unflinching doctor. All eyes are on escape – scruples are for losers.

At its 2021 premiere, Creature’s storytelling seemed blurred but felt much more secure this time round – either Khan has sharpened it, or I’m watching better. With its ominous design and intent cast, it makes an impressive if joyless evening – dire with foreboding of desolation to come.

Sadler’s Wells, to April 1; sadlerswells.com