“Atonement” Demonstrates Intently Perception Isn’t Everything

By Flo Mano with Wes Hessel

The story is based on true circumstances at an English manor in 1935, just a few years before World War II breaks out. It became the acclaimed 2001 novel by Ian McEwan, then an Oscar-winning film. In the first act of this treatment, two sisters and a brother have a classic like/don’t like relationship with the son of one of the servants, who is interested in one of the sisters – that summer in their coming of age, three cousins (two twin boys and a girl) and a family friend come to stay as guests. During their weekend in the manor, a ballet-with-in-a ballet is conceived, then the twins do a disappearing act, leading everyone to search for them and in the meantime, the female cousin is thought to have been assaulted by the housekeeper’s son. The one sister, believing this, informs of what she thought she saw, and the son of the servant goes to prison as a result.

The second part jumps ahead to World War II in a hospital crowded with wounded and trauma – the sisters have both become nurses and the one who had informed, through circumstances realizes what actually had occurred years before, vowing to make amends and restore the possibility of relationship between her sister and the son of the housekeeper, who had chosen to enter the war to be furloughed from the prison. Thus, her “Atonement”.

The intensity of a world-class company such as the Joffrey becomes even more so with such material – Atonement’s choreography by expert Cathy Marston makes for a nuanced, complex, expressive, emotional, and ultimately, exquisite ballet, delivered skillfully by the cast. Do not miss this gripping movement masterpiece, running now through October 27th; for tickets or more information, please visit www.joffrey.org. 

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