An engorged king totters in heels as he crisscrosses the stage, aided by members of his entourage who transport his swollen form in rotating lifts. Tiers of orange-blond curls bob around his badly made-up face, his lips stained red and pursed in a simpering grimace.
It’s no wonder that his queen, her eyes hidden by sunglasses and the steely brim of a hat — remind you of someone? — takes one look at him and dry heaves.
Alexei Ratmansky’s latest work for New York City Ballet, “The Naked King,” is a retelling of Hans Christian Andersen’s “The Emperor’s New Clothes” in which a monarch’s vanity allows three grifters to trick him into being naked in public.
As the King, Andrew Veyette, returning to the stage after retiring last spring, is a stellar scene stealer with a knack for magnifying the nuances of cluelessness. Even with his body encased in a fat suit, he pulls off a few à la seconde turns, but he is mainly a presence that oozes onto the stage, a mix of the ridiculous and sickening.
The spark for Ratmansky’s new ballet, he has said, was a “No Kings” protest. Political commentary by way of ballet isn’t common, but Ratmansky is a choreographer who has been wrestling with what ballet can say in turbulent times. The Russian invasion of Ukraine prompted him to create “Solitude,” a somber, heart-wrenching work inspired by a photograph of a father kneeling next to his dead son.
This time, Ratmansky, City Ballet’s artist in residence, is looking at distressing times through humor. Set to Jean Françaix’s “Le Roi Nu,” also inspired by Andersen’s tale, was created in 1935 for a ballet by Serge Lifar amid the spread of fascism in Europe.
Santo Loquasto’s costumes for “The Naked King” — spanning different eras, from Louis XIV to 1980s hair bands to the present day — have much to say alongside Ratmansky’s prickly choreography that matches the music with sharp, rhythmic accuracy. Loquasto follows suit in many of his fabric choices, which have a tawdry and tacky edge.
Wigs distinguish the three tailors, or airborne Swindlers, who burst into the kingdom dressed like members of competing Jersey-shore cover bands. Daniel Ulbricht, David Gabriel and KJ Takahashi have a slithering way of gliding their hands over fabric that isn’t there — talking the King into the power of invisible clothes.
As the Queen, Miriam Miller is a force of brittle and bored disdain even as she dances the Charleston with her lover (Peter Walker), a government official whose swooning is cartoonishly spot on in his desperation to show that he is a real man.
An entourage of flatterers — three couples wearing monochromatic outfits — flit around the stage, their bodies active vessels of capitulation as they refuse to let on that the king’s finery is invisible. It all comes down to the guileless wisdom of a child, played with gumption by Oliver Lobo Ellena, a student at the School of American Ballet. He dashes onstage to shout the obvious: “Look! The King is naked!”
The townspeople and the swindlers rejoice, and the King — meekly covering his tiny genitalia — is kicked off the stage. The end is satisfying, if abrupt.
For all the humor of “The Naked King,” it is also a ballet loaded with brisk nuggets of action that, while biting, sometimes have the feel of a joke stretched too thin.
Perhaps obviousness is the point. “The Naked King” is forthright, seemingly more of a dance that Ratmansky needed to get off his chest than an attempt at a timeless creation. In that regard, the ballet, City Ballet’s 500th original creation, is in conversation with another choreographer: the modern master Paul Taylor, who made dances that addressed political themes, sometimes head on. He committed to satire.
In Taylor’s short-lived “House of Joy” (2012), a dancer, dressed like a conservative politician, goes to a brothel without money and gets beaten up. A dancer playing a prostitute raises her hands with a “now what?” expression on her face.
Loquasto was Taylor’s longtime collaborator, and at times the sheer lunacy of his choices for “The Naked King” — Gabriel’s frizzy wig, leopard pants and pendant, for one — are like old friends. Taylor is no longer around to weigh in, so Ratmansky has stepped up. This is comforting.
During his curtain call, Ratmansky shrugged a little sheepishly, looking a little like Alfred E. Neuman, the fictitious mascot of Mad Magazine whose line was, “What, me worry?” Telling truths through movement is hard — and through ballet, it’s even harder. “The Naked King” dances along a path fueled not by ballet’s beauty, but by the courage of conviction. Like Taylor, Ratmansky isn’t afraid to be ugly.
New York City Ballet
Through March 1 at the David H. Koch Theater; nycballet.com.
Gia Kourlas is the dance critic for The Times. She writes reviews, essays and feature articles and works on a range of stories.
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