Matthew Bourne's at Orpheum Theatre
Not since Mark Morris's The Hard Nut or the antics of Les Ballets Trocadero de Monte Carlo has the Bay Area seen anything quite like Matthew Bourne's all-male version of Swan Lake. But let's not brand this as mere parody. Bourne has made quite a career of reimagining the classics (anyone remember The Car Man at Cal Performances a few years back?), and his Swan Lake picked up an Olivier Award (the top theater award in England) for best dance production in 1996. Some critics see this show as a mocking of Britain's Royal Family, others call it the "gay Swan Lake" for the central story of a Prince who basically falls in love with the male swan, but the story is much more complex and heartrending than that. However, for some of us, the only encouragement we need to get our butts to this show is the promise of young, muscular and shirtless men leaping about the stage for a couple of hours.
Playing March 21 through April 16

Photo of Jose Tirado, Neil Westmoreland and the Swan Lake company by Bill Cooper.

Swan Lake