Adapting ballets out of plot-heavy novels set in fantasy locations and populated with multiple characters is a rubbish idea. The profound truth of such a proposal is forcefully borne out by the wretched muddle of Wayne McGregor’s MaddAddam, an over-inflated farrago drawn from a triptych of visionary fictions by Margaret Atwood.
McGregor – hugely talented and energetic as he is – needs to calm down and slow down and think small
Where to start? Apocalyptic themes – political, environmental and ‘societal’ – are evoked in images and spoken narration without McGregor having any means in his hyperactive choreographic vocabulary to translate them meaningfully into dance. Only those who are already au fait with Atwood’s extremely complex and wilfully ambiguous narratives will be able to penetrate, let alone navigate, what the hell is going on.
The first act takes place in the aftermath of a pandemic in which a figure known as the Snowman leads a posse of engineered hominids out into a depopulated world.
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