Inside Giovanni’s Room, Phoenix Dance Theatre Review 4*
Inside Giovanni’s Room is Phoenix Dance Theatre’s streamlined and hard-hitting dance adaptation of James Baldwin’s seminal gay novel
The African American writer James Baldwin (1924-1987) is best known as a civil rights activist, whose prolific output includes such uncompromising essays as Notes of a Native Son and The Fire Next Time, which remain formative texts in the struggle for racial equality.
Baldwin was gay at a time of profound, legally-enshrined homophobia; and that, too, is a topic he explored with unflinching thoroughness, namely in the novel Giovanni’s Room, which centres on David, a white American man struggling with his sexuality.
Mostly set in 1950s Paris, Baldwin’s novel has a complex cast of characters and developments; and it is to Marcus Jarrell Willis’s credit that his adaptation for Phoenix Dance Theatre, where he is artistic director, has resulted in a streamlined, compact and highly affecting piece.
Entitled Inside Giovanni’s Room it has now reached Sadler’s Wells East at the end of a UK-wide tour.
Giovanni’s room is an initially claustrophobic three-sided dark red box, its window permanently shuttered, its only furniture a chaise longue, placed centre stage (set design Jacob Hughes). As the ballet starts, David stands before the empty room reminiscing.
Teige Bisnought infuses David’s initial solo with deep anguish, his body contracting with the pain of guilt and love lost, arms stretched out as if to grab a life that’s gone. The struggle between David’s desires and his self-denial is present in Bisnought’s emotional dancing throughout.
Gradually the key characters emerge from the sidelines: David’s girlfriend Hella (Dorna Ashory), who’s on her way to Spain the ponder whether to marry him, his distant father (Phikolwethu Luke) and Aunt Ellen, an influential figure in David’s life, danced with forceful elegance by Yasmina Patel.
And then, of course, there is Giovanni, the Italian barman whose attraction David can’t resist, though he tries. A strong, very physical dancer, Dylan Springer creates a seductive, rough yet innocent and vulnerable character, the ultimate victim.
David engages briefly with all the other characters, but the core of the ballet is his prolonged dialogue with Giovanni. At first separated by the counter, while the customers in the gay bar perform a vigorous jitterbug, their play fight with a tea towel becomes ever more erotic.
Finally they stand face to face, David’s attempts to back off ever more futile; and they move into Giovanni’s room, no longer a claustrophobic box but now a refuge, a haven, courtesy of Luke Haywood’s warmer lighting,
Their love-making is graphic, at once eager and tender, and as they lie together, David seems to have reached a moment of peace.
Hella’s return brings David crashing down to earth and precipitates the tragedy that leads Giovanni to murder and a death sentence.
Reading the plot synopsis and character list beforehand helps guide the audience through the story, which moves backwards and forwards between present and remembered past; but the character definition is clear, and the intention to make the portrayal of the universal struggle for self-acceptance resonate today is fully realised.
Inside Giovanni’s Room thus enters the repertoire of Leeds-based Phoenix Dance Theatre as one more boundary-pushing dance work, following the company’s stated mission since its beginnings over 40 years ago.
© Teresa Guerreiro
(Banner image credit: Dylan Springer and Teige Bisnought in Inside Giovanni’s Room. Photo: Drew Forsyth)
Inside Giovanni’s Room is at Sadler’s Wells East 11 – 14 June 2025. Info and tickets here