Limelight · Ballet

The Car Man

The Car Man is a full-evening narrative dance work made by British choreographer Matthew Bourne for his company Adventures in Motion Pictures, first previewed on 16 May 2000 at the Theatre Royal, Plymouth, and transferred to the Old Vic, London, later that year. It relocates the emotional territory of Bizet's Carmen into a fictional 1960s Italian-American town, Harmony, USA, and fuses it with the plot of James M. Cain's The Postman Always Rings Twice, telling a story of a drifter, an unhappily married diner-owner's wife, a bullied garage hand, and a murder that is pinned on the wrong man.

What it contains

Contemporary Ballet · Act I
  • Contemporary Ballet · Act One, Scene Two — A named choreographic device — two characters performing separate solos simultaneously to express parallel emotional states — used to convey feeling through movement rather than mime or dialogue, consistent with contemporary narrative-ballet construction. Source: "in parallel solos, both Lana and Angelo express joyous ecstasy at having encountered Luca that night."

What is danced

The article is a plot synopsis rather than a technical account, but it makes clear that the piece is built as danced scenes rather than sung or spoken drama: mechanics work and socialise in ensemble movement at the garage and diner, couples pair off in seduction duets (Luca and Lana's affair, later Luca and Angelo's), and at least one moment is explicitly choreographed as 'parallel solos' in which two characters (Lana and Angelo) dance separately but simultaneously to express the same emotional state. Confrontation is also physicalised as movement: Luca 'antagonizes the men' at the diner through flirting, pushing, slapping and a same-sex kiss, staged to the Habanera theme from Carmen; later a hired-help character is taught 'how to fight,' and the climax is built around a staged 'bare-knuckle fighting competition' with paired bouts, plus a drag-racing sequence, before the final shooting.

Context

The Car Man appeared in 2000 as part of Matthew Bourne's run of story ballets (following his all-male Swan Lake) that reworked classical or operatic sources into contemporary, sexually explicit, cinematic narrative dance for a mixed theatre and dance audience, moving British narrative ballet away from courtly or fairy-tale plots and toward film-noir and pulp-fiction material staged with full-company mimetic scenes rather than divertissement structure.

Staging history

It premiered with Adventures in Motion Pictures in Plymouth in May 2000 and moved to the Old Vic, London, that September; a planned New York transfer after a 2001 Los Angeles run was shelved following the 11 September attacks. Channel 4 filmed it for UK television broadcast at Christmas 2001, later released on DVD. Bourne's successor company New Adventures revived it in 2007 as 'Bizet's Carmen Reimagined' for a UK tour, and again from April to August 2015; that run ended a day early at Sadler's Wells after the death of Jonathan Ollivier, who danced Luca, in a motorbike accident, and the production was screened internationally in cinemas from March 2016 and reissued on DVD/Blu-ray in 2017.

How to watch it

Watch for the way plot and character are carried by duet and ensemble movement rather than mime-and-dance alternation: the extended seduction sequences, the 'parallel solos' for Lana and Angelo, and the staged fight-club and drag-racing finale all function as the ballet's dance numbers. The piece is subtitled 'An Auto-Erotic Thriller,' and its frank physical treatment of sex and violence, including same-sex desire between Luca and Angelo, is central to how the choreography reads.

Structure

  1. Act I · Scene Prologue
    Luca, a drifter, arrives in the town of Harmony; no specific dance vocabulary described beyond his arrival.
  2. Act I · Scene 1
    Mechanics work, bully Angelo, then gather with their girlfriends at Dino's Diner; Luca arrives and, to the Habanera theme, flirts with and physically antagonises the men before Dino hires him.
  3. Act I · Scene 2
    Luca teaches Angelo to fight, seduces Lana in a duet, and the scene closes with parallel solos for Lana and Angelo expressing their joy at having each slept with Luca.
  4. Act I · Scene 3 · Wedding reception
    A hoedown-themed wedding reception at the diner turns violent when Dino discovers Lana and Luca together; Dino is killed and Angelo is wrongly arrested.
  5. Act II · Scene 1 · Le Beat-Route
    At Shirley's club, a cabaret act is performed by Virginia, Erick and Jose; Luca and Lana socialise, gamble and drink.
  6. Act II · Scene 2
    In jail, Angelo learns from Rita that Luca is the real killer, then overpowers and escapes the warder who attempts to rape him.
  7. Act II · Scene 3
    At Le Beat-Route again, a drunk Luca is haunted by a vision of the bleeding Dino.
  8. Act II · Scene 4 · Finale
    Drag racing and a staged bare-knuckle fighting competition at the garage lead to Angelo taking hostages, a struggle, and Luca's death at Lana's hand.

Structure read from an encyclopaedia article, not from a libretto or score we hold. Confirm against a programme before treating the numbering as authoritative.

Credits

  • composer: Georges Bizet

Questions

Is The Car Man the story of Bizet's Carmen?
No. It uses Rodion Shchedrin's Carmen Suite (with additional music by Terry Davies) as its score, drawing on Bizet's music, but the plot is original, based loosely on James M. Cain's novel The Postman Always Rings Twice and its film adaptations, relocated to a 1960s American town.
Who choreographed The Car Man?
The article credits it as a dance production by British choreographer Matthew Bourne, made for his company Adventures in Motion Pictures (later New Adventures); our own record does not currently list a choreographer credit.
When did The Car Man premiere?
According to the article it previewed on 16 May 2000 at the Theatre Royal, Plymouth, before moving to the Old Vic, London, in September 2000; this date is not currently recorded in our catalogue entry.
Why did the 2015 revival end early?
The tour closed a day ahead of schedule at Sadler's Wells on 8 August 2015 following the death of Jonathan Ollivier, who danced the role of Luca, in a motorbike accident.
This entry was written from “The Car Man (Bourne)” on English Wikipedia (revision 1368237161), used under CC BY-SA 4.0. The link points at the exact revision this text was written from, so it shows the words we actually used rather than whatever the article says today. Credits and premiere data come from Wikidata (CC0), cited per field.
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