Here, the woman is wearing the pants. Although she doesn't even have a name. She is simply Lady Macbeth. The ultimate villain. She is introduced, not unlike a Disney villain: with a billowing red sail at her back, her arms flailing on a lookout post. This first appearance is, of course, the most spectacular moment in the new, two-hour, full-length narrative ballet by Het Nationale Ballet in Amsterdam, which premiered in April. Helen Pickett, who worked for many years with William Forsythe and the Wooster Group and now specializes worldwide in literary ballets (developed with director James Bonas), has little to say about Shakespeare's original. Nor does she offer a motive for the lady's cruel actions in her quest for power.
The somewhat longer half of the new work, closely following ...
