Laura Freeman Laura Freeman

Manon can be magnificent, this one was merely meh

Plus: Pam Tanowitz’s homage to Merce Cunningham is a triumph

issue 19 October 2019

Manon: minx or martyr? There are two ways to play Kenneth MacMillan’s courtesan. Is Manon an ingénue, a guileless country girl, pimped by her own brother and corrupted by Monsieur G.M.? Or is she a pleasure hunter, a man-manipulator, a schemer out for all she can get? In the Royal Ballet’s revival of Kenneth MacMillan’s Manon, Sarah Lamb is somewhere in the unsatisfactory middle.

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