DANCE REVIEW : LA FOSSE AND BROWNE IN ABT’S SECOND ‘ROMEO’

Robert La Fosse and Leslie Browne made a mismatched pair of dancing lovers on Thursday in the second American Ballet Theatre “Romeo and Juliet” of the week in Shrine Auditorium.

La Fosse portrayed Romeo as a spoiled, knowing hedonist, more enraptured by romance in general--the fe e ling of being a lover--than involved with anyone in particular. Browne portrayed Juliet as nearly desperate for Romeo’s love--a strange, deep and repressed girl capable of the same eruptions of wild passion as her mother. Of course, this kind of relationship always ends badly--with or without a family feud.

Though he never executed any of the demanding step-combinations in character, La Fosse danced his solos capably. However, his partnering proved so effortful, his characterization so lacking in innocence, that he would have been better cast as Mercutio. Indeed, this Romeo looked far more himself in sensual interplay with Rosaline, or in rough byplay with the marketplace whores, than in the Capulet courtyard, bedroom or tomb.

Browne, though, claimed Juliet for her own with a passionate, imaginative performance that avoided nearly every cliche of ballerina lyricism and sentimentality--apart from forced girlishness in her first scene and a vagrant trace of Cinderella-at-the-ball in the early passages of her second. The tomb scene, with her heartbreaking smile when she saw Romeo sprawled on the floor--as if she thought that he, too, might be just sleeping--was especially individual and truthful.

Browne danced skillfully, forcefully--with no attempt to appear delicate--and, considering La Fosse’s clumsiness, her physical abandon in the difficult lifts seemed brave indeed. In her two duets with Paris, she responded to the remarkable partnering suavity of John Meehan with even greater stretch and expressive freedom.

Besides Meehan, the Thursday cast boasted a superior Nurse and Lady Capulet in Susan Jones and Georgina Parkinson--the former offering a splendid character-walk, the latter using every nuance of face, gesture and position to create a vivid sketch of an elegant stifled woman. Most other major roles were cast with dancers previously reviewed. Alan Barker conducted--slowly and ponderously.