Is this 'Swan Lake' or a camp of capons?

By Joseph T. Rozmiarek
Advertiser Drama Critic

•	Les Ballets Trockadero de Monte Carlo 8 p.m. today Hawai'i Theatre $25, $40, $55 528-0506 Also: 8 p.m. tomorrow at Kahilu Theatre, Waimea, Hawai'i; $25, $30, $35 (808) 885-6868

Of course, check your program: It's Les Ballets Trockadero de Monte Carlo, where all the performers are men and the gimmick is comedy.

Still, it's real ballet, and the company prides itself on being composed of professional dancers with classical training. And while their approach is to render traditional styles of serious dance, they also parody the form and focus on the accidents and idiosyncrasies that accompany it.

The pre-show announcer assures us that, despite the traditional substitutions in the program, all the ballerinas are in good moods. They should be, with pseudonyms like Clubfoot, Sakitumi and the Legupski Brothers.

The question is whether the image of linebacker bodies balancing on their toes can sustain a full evening's performance — or does the novelty fade, leaving us wishing for either greater slapstick or straight dance instead?

For the most part, the answer is that Trockadero works pretty well and seemed to please the ballet sophisticates as well as the novices in last night's opening performance.

The Act 1 excerpt from "Swan Lake" succeeds with a sneak attack that phased the comedy in slowly. The initial fun comes from a tall Prince, a robust and hairy Swan Queen, and a diminutive footman who shrinks from the bird's disdain. The corps de ballet contributes excellent dancers who combine in quartets and sextets, but always with one member out of sync — a beat behind or facing the wrong way.

But the swans have a strong strain of ugly duckling in their heritage. Their thick waists, big feet and biceps give them a horsey look — and they end up, well, manhandling the footman.

Act 2 features a peasant lad and maid who bash themselves with tambourines and alternately lift each other, a group of power walkers and a solo dying swan.

Act 3 is "Paquita," danced in the French style and featuring a Ballerina and Cavalier and five solo variations.

I left somewhere between variations No. 3 and 4 to make an evening deadline, with a developing impression that men-as-ballerinas had much in common with children performing Shakespeare.

The incongruity can be fascinating up to a point, after which we get over the gimmick and begin to wish for the real thing.

Curiously, the evening's most successful piece worked best for reasons that had nothing to do with gender. The dying swan molted feathers all across the stage and succumbed with much bravado, but with all the grace of an anorexic turkey — with rickets.

Now that's still ballet — and a heck of a funny bit.