O.C. Dance : ‘Manon’ Touches the Sore Spots : Kenneth MacMillan’s unconventional ballet looks at the seamy side of life. There’s room for that perspective, says ABT’s Georgina Parkinson.

Choreographer Kenneth MacMillan cut the role he created for Georgina Parkinson from his full-length ballet “Manon,” but she bears him no grudge. In fact, she calls MacMillan “a genius” and a man “ahead of his time.”

“I had an absolutely fabulous pas de deux, which opened Act III in the original ‘Manon,’ ” for the Royal Ballet of Great Britain, Parkinson said recently by phone from her home in New York City. “I was the courtesan of the Jailer. When we later revived it a few years later, Kenneth said the ballet was too long and that to introduce a new character in Act III was more than the audience could deal with, so it would have to go.

“So that was that. Nothing personal or anything, he said. He cut the whole role.”

That cut notwithstanding, Parkinson said Orange County will be seeing “Manon” as MacMillan envisioned it during the American Ballet Theatre’s six-day engagement beginning Tuesday at the Orange County Performing Arts Center. This is the first time ABT is dancing the full-length ballet in Southern California.

Parkinson danced with the Royal Ballet for about two decades and has been ballet mistress at ABT since 1978. In that position, she coaches Cynthia Harvey, Julie Kent and Susan Jaffe, who will be dancing “Manon” next week in Costa Mesa. MacMillan died in 1992 at the age of 62. He had been director of the Royal since 1970, but he also served as Artistic Associate of ABT from 1984-89.

“Manon” was his third full-length ballet, choreographed in 1974, nine years after his “Romeo and Juliet.” For the plot, MacMillan went back to the source--Abbe Prevost’s 18th-Century novel, rather than to Massenet’s’ famous opera. To distinguish it further from the opera--although the plot is by and large the same--the Massenet music that MacMillan used didn’t include anything from the opera.

In a 1974 interview in the New Yorker, MacMillan said: “The characters fascinate me. You have a 16-year-old heroine who is beautiful and absolutely amoral, and a hero who is corrupted by her and becomes a cheat, a liar and a murderer. Not exactly our conventional ballet plot, is it?”

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Consequently, Parkinson said, “When Kenneth did it in 1974, everybody hated it. It got dreadful reviews. Kenneth has always been ahead of his time. He challenged his audience to look at the way life was, not the way (they) would like it to be. Some people find it very stimulating to be confronted with life with a capital L, as it really is. But that doesn’t incorporate (the audience) being carried off on a cloud at the end.

“With ballets by (Frederick) Ashton, everyone left the theater feeling fabulous,” she added. “But people leave the theater uncomfortable with Kenneth. Maybe they’ve seen things they didn’t want to acknowledge.

“If it touches many sore places, that’s great. That’s what I like in the theater. But not everybody does. Maybe it’s even harder for a ballet audience to accept that seamy side of life. But maybe there’s room for both attitudes.”

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The choreography for “Manon” is “intensely physical,” Parkinson said. “The choreography carries the emotion. A lot of what he’s saying is written in the choreography. But a dancer needs a deep understanding of the character to make her come alive for the audience. . . .

“Everybody wants to believe in true love. You have to try to prevent (the audience) from doing that. This is a woman who is completely in touch with herself and only herself, and things that please her and satisfy her. They have to have that understanding. They have to read the book, get a grasp of the issues. It’s about survival.

“Manon was a material girl, and she only knew what she wanted at that moment and went out just to get that. I don’t think she was looking to the repercussions of what might happen. And at that time, you were rich or in the gutter, a courtesan. She loved all that money gave her as much as she loved (her young lover) Des Grieux. It was hard for her to differentiate.”

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Watching the ballet, Parkinson said, is like “watching a novel unfold. And at the end, when Manon is dying, there is a great pas de deux, which shows his intensity and her intensity in death. It leaves the audience in tears. You wanted her to be different and love him all along--romantic, poetic, soppy. The audience wants her to treat him better and she does and when it ends, it’s too late. She’s dead.”

As for the compiled score, Parkinson said, “it works for the ballet. It’s a little thin in places, but the main melodies are there when he needs them. . . .

“In all three-act ballets, there’s padding and filling in. But physically it’s so beautiful and so of that period. It’s very rich in content. It has to be given time. I don’t think it should be scrutinized on a first viewing. It takes a lot of viewings. (Then) more and more stuff comes out.

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“MacMillan’s very observant about life and love and physical needs and romance. I think he was a genius and those pas de deux appeal to one and all. He’s given the girls such great vehicles--and the boys, too--to explore themselves and reveal a lot about themselves--maybe even when they don’t want to admit what is there.”

* American Ballet Theatre will dance Kenneth MacMillan’s “Manon” on Tuesday and Sept. 23-25 at 8 p.m., and on Sept. 24 and 25 at 2 p.m. at the Orange County Performing Arts Center, 600 Town Center Drive, Costa Mesa. The company will dance works by Makarova (after Petipa), Twyla Tharp and James Kudelka on Sept. 21 and 22 at 8 p.m. $18 to $55. (714) 740-2000 (Ticketmaster) or (714) 556-2787.