Months away from the expected gala opening of American Repertory Theater’s new home across the Charles River, their Loeb Drama Center is causing another sort of excitement with an elegant, chilling adaptation of Black Swan, Darren Aronofsky’s 2010 psychosexual melodrama that won an Oscar for Natalie Portman as an unbalanced prima ballerina. Is it destined down the road to be embraced by a mass audience – the Timothée Chalamets of the world to whom classical dance gives a ballet-ache? Who can say? But it’s a thrill ride.
The libretto by Jen Silverman (The Roommate) largely follows the film’s playbook on young Nina Sayers (Melanie Moore), unexpectedly pulled out of the corps de ballet of her company (or school, I was never sure which) for the major dual role in a revival of Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake. All concerned agree she’s perfectly cast as the virginal White Swan. But when she must switch gears to become the titular, wickedly sensual alter ego? Maybe not so much. Nina has … issues, not least of which are the growing pains of a young woman torn between the changes of puberty and the discipline required for stardom.
There are also the pressures exerted by a grasping ex-dancer mom (Mehry Eslaminia, stepping in for Kate Jennings Grant on opening night) and world-class visiting choreographer Margaux LeRoy (Amber Iman) whose rep is on the line with this audacious casting. Throw in the barely-hidden animosity of the ensemble – you know how that goes, everybody is agog to see her fail – and the constant presence of a sinister understudy (Jada Simone Clark), and no wonder she starts to crack up. Worse and worse, right up to the inevitable opening night walpurgisnacht.
Are her visions, intensified by a hypnotic roofie slipped into a drink at a too-happy hour, fun to watch? Your experience with the likes of The Red Shoes and the original Portman vehicle should determine whether seeing a little lady dance her way into the snake pit is your cup of angst. But it’s a grabber no matter how you slice it. The movable barres and ubiquitous mirrors in a basic black-box, credited to “AMP featuring Marissa Todd,” turn out to hide and reveal all manner of hallucinations, as if Robin Wagner had been forced at gunpoint to turn his classic A Chorus Line set into a House of Horrors. Kai Harada’s sound design sends the pain in Nina’s head on re-verb into ours, with Isabella Byrd’s lighting gradually transforming from expressive into Expressionistic, culminating in a truly cinematic series of quick-cuts that will take your breath away as the swans do their thing. (Chris Fisher & Skylar Fox take the bows for illusion design, and the biggest compliment I can offer is that you don’t stop – at least I didn’t – to marvel at their artistry. It’s only after seeing it through Nina’s eyes that you go, “How did they do that?”)
But back to the swans doing their thing, for that’s the big news of this Black Swan. Choreographer-director Sonya Tayeh (Moulin Rouge! Tony winner) and Silverman wisely have LeRoy jettison the usual Swan Lake trappings – no romantic prince! – which allows Tayeh to incorporate elements of her signature “combat jazz” blend of styles old and new with the occasional nod to Twyla or Bill T. Jones and, yes, even Martha Graham. Nina’s struggles are blessedly not talked about, but rather acted out; one can readily monitor her decline through movement alone. I cannot understand how Melanie Moore doesn’t lose 10 pounds per performance, pounds she clearly hasn’t to lose, but she is amazing, and the entire ensemble goes toe to toe with her. Pun intended.
Musically, this is the first Dave Malloy score I’ve encountered that isn’t Dave Malloy-forward. The virtuosity of Natasha, Pierre and the Great Comet of 1812, and the underappreciated A.R.T.-premiered Moby-Dick, here seems modestly sublimated to the whole. The individual songs are far less striking than the witty samplings of Tchaikovsky – including a giggly Nutcracker dream ballet, don’t ask – on which orchestrator Malloy and music supervisor Or Matias collaborated, evidently amicably because everything in the show seems to be the product of amicable collaboration. Which is as it should be, right?
The story could use some fine-tuning. As effective as Moore is, we ought to get to know more about Nina before her decline kicks in. Thom Sesma is a stock bureaucrat as ineffective as the impresarios in Phantom, while Mama Sayers makes an unexpected second-act shift into Mrs. Danvers of Rebecca. (Silverman might usefully take another look at Barbara Hershey in the movie, tensely feral throughout.) More importantly, it’s only hinted that this gig is something of a comedown for the imperious LeRoy; raising the personal stakes of her comeback would add an extra layer of urgency. Iman is a charismatic performer who could benefit from a little less Miss Liza Jane (Alicia Keys’ homey mentor in Hell’s Kitchen) and a little more Miranda Priestly out of The Devil Wears Prada.
None of which takes away from the overall experience. I’d wager that Tayeh is on the verge of a major directorial career with this tightly-wrought, carefully-wound experiment in stage terror. Aronofsky’s film generalizes from Nina’s saga to broader statements about the personal agonies of artistic creation that border on cliché. By shifting the narrative to focus on Nina as an individual rather than as a symbol, Tayeh and company render her struggle less pretentious and less risible. And, to my mind, infinitely more relatable.
Black Swan opened June 10, 2026, at the Loeb Drama Center/American Repertory Theater (Cambridge, MA) and runs through July 12. Tickets and information: americanrepertorytheater.org
