Midnight Tango
The Lowry, 20 April 2011
Credit: Manuel Harlan
What you can expect to see here is a show that is slick, sensuous and often sensational.
On more than one occasion, the men in the audience will find their eyes wandering towards the ladies’ legs, while at the exact same moment the women will want to look at the lady dancers’ shoes. That’s the difference between the sexes, in a nutshell.
In essence, Midnight Tango uses dance and music – tango, to state the obvious – to tell a story, just as ballet does. To be sure, it’s rather a rudimentary narrative – to do with passion, infidelity and jealousy, that kind of thing – but it is present nonetheless.
It is the dancing that makes the show, mind, and it stands up all on its own. Flavia Cacace, as Sofia, is spectacularly sexy. Perhaps this is not news and I’m stating the obvious once more. She looks like an athletic, Italianate Louise Brooks. And her legs have ‘enough melodic line for a tone poem’, in Raymond Chandler’s words. Or a tango riff.
Midnight Tango is quite different from certain contemporary interpretations of the music (such as Astillero Tango’s take on it) and there’s just a smidgeon of melancholy, a central element of the traditional tango according to Julio de Caro, but if you approach the show on its own terms – as slick, fast-moving entertainment – then you’ll find much to enjoy.
