DRIVEN TO EXTREMES MAVERICK CHOREOGRAPHER MATTHEW BOURNE GIVES BIZET'S 'CARMEN' A NEW IDENTITY.

The man who brought us a buff, ultra-masculine ``Swan Lake'' and a World War II-era ``Cinderella'' is back with a sweaty, sexy love triangle set in the American Midwest. A drifter takes a job as a mechanic, seduces the boss's young wife, and all hell breaks loose to the strains of Bizet's romantic score.

Make that Bizet a la Matthew Bourne, the iconic British dance director and choreographer. This isn't quite ``Carmen.'' It's ``The Car Man, an Auto-Erotic Thriller.''

``We're using the music to tell a different story,'' says Bourne from Minneapolis, where ``The Car Man'' opened its United States tour before rumbling into the Ahmanson Theatre, where it opens tonight. ``That's a different process than what I've done before. This time I wrote the story first.''

That story - inspired, Bourne says, by a mish-mash of movies including ``My Own Private Idaho,'' ``Fight Club'' and ``The Postman Always Rings Twice'' - was Bourne's pass-key into ``Carmen.'' The 41-year-old artistic director and choreographer of the British company Adventures in Motion Pictures, loved the music but didn't want to create the 6,000th version of Bizet's soldier/factory worker/bullfighter saga.

So he dreamed up a sleepy town in the Midwest, named it - with full ironic intent - Harmony, and populated it with messy-haired, leggy women suggestive of European beauties like Sophia Loren and Brigitte Bardot. There's a Brando-like drifter named Luca, and Angelo, a sensitive pigeon just ripe for seduction and corruption. No, this isn't your grandfather's ``Carmen.''

Not that there was ever much danger that a Bourne-directed AMP production would be conventional, as anybody who saw the Tony Award-winning ``Swan Lake'' (at the Ahmanson or briefly at the end of the film ``Billy Elliot'') would attest. Tutus, schmu-tus. Remember those hunky bare-chested male swans with the feathery thighs?

Don't call it ballet

With ``Car Man,'' as with ``Swan Lake,'' The term ``ballet'' isn't really appropriate when you talk about a Bourne piece. Admittedly, Bourne's characters define themselves through movement and they neither sing nor speak. When they first put ``Swan Lake'' on the menu, Center Theater Group brass let their subscribers know, via letters and ads, that the fare they were about to be served wasn't some safe ``King and I'' revival. If the subscribers elected to pass on the dance-dominated piece, they'd get refunds, says Charles Dillingham, CTG managing director.

``Although it was 'Swan Lake,' a danced piece, (artistic director Gordon Davidson) felt this was theater in a very genuine way, and we thought our subscribers would, too,'' says Dillingham. ``So we took our hearts in our mouths, and said, 'Let's give this a try.' ''

Bourne doesn't use the B word, preferring to label his work ``musical theater'' or ``dance theater.'' Bizet's score has been adapted by Terry Davies and Rodion Shchedrin. Los Angeles is also the only stop on the ``Car Man'' tour where the work will be backed by a live orchestra.

Still, Bourne acknowledges that the question continues to surface, especially as artists continue to blur the lines between the different mediums.

``When we did 'Swan Lake,' Cameron Mackintosh, who was co-producing, did a lot of interviews where he said, 'This isn't a ballet. I hate ballet, and I wouldn't be presenting it if it were,' '' recalls Bourne. ``That (ticked) a lot of people off and some of the reviews said, 'Actually, Cameron, this is a ballet.' ''

``I'm not very keen on things that try to mix text and movement on an equal level. I'm so into trying to tell people a story without words that if words come in, I feel as though I've failed in some way.''

The discussion invariably turns to ``Contact,'' another dance-driven play with not much dialogue that just closed at the Ahmanson. ``Contact,'' which had no live music and no singing, won the Tony Award for Best Musical the season after ``Swan Lake'' was deemed ineligible for the same award. (In the American Theatre Wing's weird logic, Bourne was still eligible to win Tony awards for best direction of a musical and for his choreography.)

``I love Susan Stroman's work, and I like what she does with numbers in other shows more than what she did with 'Contact,' '' says Bourne. ``The movement didn't forward any plot. I think it's more interesting when you can say something with movement rather than having a story that just involves movement.''

On the cutting edge

He may ultimately have to start tossing words into the story-telling mix. Bourne - who hasn't danced since taking a small role in ``Swan Lake'' more than two years ago - expects to eventually direct a play, although not necessarily a musical. Baz Luhrmann's work with the summer film ``Moulin Rouge'' also presents interesting possibilities for a creative director who also happens to be a movie hound. For now, however, his stage dance card is still pretty full. Bourne choreographed the recent Royal National Theatre production of ``My Fair Lady,'' which may reach Broadway, and he has had discussions with Disney about a musical adaptation of ``The Little Mermaid.'' A stage version of the Tim Burton film ``Edward Scissorhands,'' a collaboration with former Oingo Boingo frontman Danny Elfman and the film's writer, Caroline Thompson, is in development, and Bourne hopes to premiere that work, not in England, but at the Ahmanson. An opening in early 2003 is the target date for ``Scissorhands.''

Los Angeles, says Bourne, feels more like a home away from home than Broadway, especially since CTG has been such a successful collaborator. A co-producer of ``Swan Lake'' and ``Cinderella,'' CTG administrators let Bourne rework ``Cinderella'' significantly before bringing it across the Atlantic. Consequently, Bourne says, the American version of ``Cinderella - set during the Blitz in 1940s London - was closer to what the director had imagined when he tackled the project.

If Bourne has nothing but kind words for his L.A. collaborators, CTG officials return the compliment.

``He's a dream to work with,'' says Dillingham. ``He's very accommodating to our needs, and he knows that we'll be very accommodating to his.'' Being in L.A. for a couple of months has other advantages as well. In addition to easy proximity to the ``Scissorhands'' creative team and studio types who invariably want to talk to Bourne about movies, the director is starting to build a network of friends and fans.

``A lot of my old heroes are here,'' he said. ``I'll probably take (dancer and actress) Ann Miller out to tea if I can.''

``THE CAR MAN''

Where: Ahmanson Theatre, 135 N. Grand Ave., Los Angeles.

When: 8 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday, 2 p.m. Saturday and Sunday; through Oct. 28.

Tickets: $25 to $70. Call [phone].

CAPTION(S):

2 photos

Photo:

(1) Saranne Curtis and Alan Vincent portray lovers in ``The Car Man,'' which draws from the story and music of ``Carmen'' as well as from the movies.

(2) British director and choreographer Matthew Bourne calls Los Angeles a home away from home.