Margaret Dale, Adapting the Stage to the Screen
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MARGARET DALE, ADAPTING THE STAGE TO THE SCREEN: AESTHETIC, APPROPRIATION, AND INTIMACY IN BALLET PROGRAMMING FOR POST -WAR BBC TELEVISION Jessica Margaret Escue, B.A., B.B.A. Thesis Prepared for the Degree of MASTER OF ARTS UNIVERSITY OF NORTH TEXAS December 2010 APPROVED: Sandra Larke-Walsh, Major Professor Steve Craig, Committee Member Andrew Crisell, Committee Member Timothy R. Wilson, Committee Member Samuel J. Sauls, Director of Graduate Studies, Department of Radio, Television and Film C. Melinda Levin, Chair of the Department of Radio, Television and Film James D. Meernik, Acting Dean of the Robert B. Toulouse School of Graduate Studies Escue, Jessica Margaret. Margaret Dale, adapting the stage to the screen: Aesthetic, appropriation, and intimacy in ballet programming for post-war BBC television. Master of Arts (Radio, Television and Film), December 2010, 149 pp., references, 71 titles. This thesis examines the aesthetic of ballets adapted for BBC Television by producer Margaret Dale, beginning with her entrance to the BBC’s training program in 1955 and culminating with her commissioned work Houseparty, which aired in 1964. A historical and organizational framework is discussed regarding the BBC’s cultural mission and view of arts programming, as well as general developmental milestones in programming contextualizing Dale’s working conditions. Particular focus is placed upon the appropriation of Romantic narrative ballets and their significance in reinforcing an aristocratic and culturally divisive structure in the arts. Textual analyses consider issues of restaging, camera placement, and lighting, as well as television’s intimacy and relationship to characterization in ballet narratives. Copyright 2010 by Jessica Margaret Escue ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I wish to extend a special thank you to Dr. Andrew Crisell of the University of Sunderland for his participation on this thesis committee, as well as his assistance in the research of this project. Archival examination was conducted under the guidance of Trish Hayes at the BBC Caversham Park, who has played a crucial role in the acquisition of pertinent records and data. Recognition is also due the British Film Institute for their marvelous cooperation in many years of research at the Stephen Street facility in London, with particular gratitude to Steve Tollervey, without whom this project would not have been possible. iii TABLE OF CONTENTS Page ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS....................................................................................................iii Chapters 1. THE CULTURAL CAPITAL OF BALLET AS NARRATIVE AND THE BBC’S ORGANIZATIONAL VIEW OF TELEVISION DANCE PROGRAMMING .......................................................................................... 1 Introduction The Cultural Capital of Neo-Classicism and Mobility of the Narrative Problems with Early Television Ballet and Margaret Dale’s Significance 2. RESITUATING ROMANTIC BALLET AND THE DEVELOPMENT OF DALE’S AESTHETIC ........................................................................... 35 Aesthetic Considerations in Adapting Ballet for the Television Screen Music For You as Early Catalyst The Legacy of Giselle as a Television Ballet Coppelia: Story, Scale and Dramatic Significance 3. THE ONSET OF COMPETITION AND THE EMERGENCE OF THE AVANT-GARDE IN DALE’S ADAPTATIONS OF LES SYLPHIDES AND PETRUSHKA....................................................................................... 72 Competition and the Changing Cultural Face of the BBC Les Sylphides as a Transitional Step Away from Romantic Classics The Historical Collaboration and Textual Importance of Petrushka Dale’s Aesthetic in Translating Petrushka to the Television Screen iv 4. EXPERIMENTAL PROGRAMMING AND THE INTRODUCTION OF BBC 2 WITH DALE’S COMMISSIONED DANCE DRAMA, HOUSEPARTY ............................................................................................ 103 The BBC and Experimental Programming Houseparty’s Textual Focus on Characterization and Power Relations Commonalities of the Feminine and Social Order in Relevant Experimental Media 5. CONCLUSION ........................................................................................... 136 WORKS CITED ................................................................................................................... 142 v CHAPTER 1 THE CULTURAL CAPITAL OF BALLET AS NARRATIVE AND THE BBC’S ORGANIZATION VIEW OF TELEVISION DANCE PROGRAMMING Introduction Adaptation has been common practice in the narratives of moving images since the beginning of their creation, both technologically and as commercial commodities. A condensed version of Dante’s Inferno opened in New York on December 10, 1911, and the first feature-length film to be shown in its entirety was a five-reel version of Oliver Twist (1912). The earliest surviving American film is an adaptation of Shakespeare’s Richard III, released four years after the Vitagraph studio’s series of Shakespearean shorts. The science of moving-images was, during the developmental years of technology, preoccupied primarily with the development of mechanics, and narrative content was often appropriated from literary stories, folklore and the stage. The British Broadcasting Corporation, likewise, employed well-known novels and plays to create programming from the very beginning of television’s regular broadcast service in 1936. According to Jacobs, television drama took three main forms before the war: extracts from plays, broadcast from the television studios at Alexandra Palace; full-length adaptations of novels and plays, also transmitted live from the TV studios; and live ‘outside broadcasts’ from London theatres. (Cooke 11) The presumed cultural value of recognizable and popular stories, the neo-classicist, nationalist mission of the BBC, and rapid social, economic and technological transforma 1 tions all informed the predominance of adaptive rather than original storytelling. The BBC structured television much like its radio service and separated music and drama into different departments. Ballet programs were initially a sub-heading of the Music Programs Department, and often designed in conjunction with seasonal goals, like religious programming for Christmas, as in the examples of The Wise Virgins, The Miracle, and the Ny Norsk mime ballet The Message, all suggested in a meeting with Religious Broadcasting in 1952. The eventually somnolent practice of showing an orchestra performing just as one would observe in concert inspired the BBC to envision new ways to expose audiences to music and arts programming. It was in this capacity that the BBC began to incorporate excerpts and eventually large-scale adaptations of ballet into the programming schedules. The Music Programs Department, for a brief period, oversaw sporadic efforts to reproduce largely romantically themed ballets for live broadcasts. However, it was BBC Children’s Programs that initially invited Margaret Dale to reproduce The Three Bears as a television ballet in 1950. The piece was similar in length and scale to other early ballet productions, running in total a short ten minutes in comparison to the twenty minutes that was typical of ballets televised for adult audiences. In 1955, Dale entered the BBC’s new producer training program and several years later, was promoted to act as ballet programs producer when it was designated as a separate department. Dale’s full-length adaptations of narrative ballets grew within the BBC as a significant specialty component of dramatic television programming. This was largely due to her formation of an inimitable methodology and wealth of experience that would 2 eventually compel some of the most amalgamated dance for camera works to date. Her adaptations came to characterize a unique aesthetic that defined the look of ballet on television and invented a new language for camera-oriented choreography. In many ways, her ballet programs came to resemble “intimate” drama, as they placed an increasingly stronger focus on characterization, the scenarios and settings of the ballets, and most importantly, the relationship of the dancers to the camera. However, her most avant-garde production, Houseparty (1964), a ballet created specifically for the television camera, was outside the scope of the BBC’s aims to expand experimental programs, and new television ballets ultimately failed to have any real standing in the television schedule. In this thesis, I discuss the historical context in which Margaret Dale was enabled to adapt and produce ballets specifically engineered for the television medium. I define the organizational parameters of ballet programs, and discuss important aspects of narrative that contributed to their adoption and success with audiences. I define the important aesthetic characteristics and evolution of Dale’s methodology of adaptation, and the specific ways in which she emphasized new aspects of ballet narratives, lending them a significantly new frame of view. Particularly, I focus on the ways in which she illuminated “character” in the intimate, dramatic setting of television. This presented a new space and context in which to discuss the relationship of female identity to different aspects of movement and narrative. Dale’s alteration of choreography and staging, as well as her careful visual construction, especially contributed to a revisioning of romantic ballets. It also called forth aspects of reform in the theatrical arts and redefined them in 3 relationship to the aesthetics of television. In