She dances, he directs, how they created a balletic battle of the sexes

“You’re supposed to be beautiful,” Joshua Bergasse told her. “You have to be beautiful. You can’t just flail."

Mearns said, “I wanted to flail.”

Bergasse, the choreographer and director of the Encores! production “I Married an Angel,” opening Wednesday, is also Mearns’ husband. He shook his head with affection, but stuck to his guns: “No.”

Was this what George Balanchine and Vera Zorina were like? In 1938, Balanchine choreographed the dances for “I Married an Angel,” a Rodgers and Hart musical comedy, for Zorina, his glamorous soon-to-be wife. But except for some silent film, there’s no record of the choreography.

Now, Bergasse, 46, is creating new moves for his Angel, Mearns, 33, who is a principal dancer with New York City Ballet, the company that Balanchine formed, with Lincoln Kirstein, in 1948. In the show, an Angel comes down from heaven, marries a mortal — Count Willy Palaffi (Mark Evans) — and loses her wings.

It’s a part made for Mearns, who as it happens is not only beautiful, but also funny — smart and daffy in a Carole Lombard kind of way, with a rich, meaty speaking voice. When Bergasse choreographed the Broadway musical “On the Town,” he created the “Lonely Town” pas de deux on her. (She filled in at the last minute for one performance.) But this is the couple’s biggest project together so far, and Mearns’ first speaking role.

“I think we were both a little nervous,” Bergasse said. “This is such a fast process” — Encores! productions come together quickly — “but so far, so good. We know each other: I can understand what she really needs when she seems frustrated or tense about something, and she knows what I need.”

At the rehearsal, there was more laughter than angst, and more sweat than tears. It helps that Mearns has a lot of dancing to do — and dancing is what she does best.

For “The Surrealist Ballet,” one of the show’s ‘ big numbers, Bergasse took cues from artist René Magritte, though the original creators were inspired by a Salvador Dalí. “The Magritte figures are easier to create on the dancers than melting clocks,” he said.

Throughout, the choreography, fast and fluent with jazzy undercurrents, sweeps along with Mearns — partnered by Christian Tworzyanski, a former City Ballet dancer and her childhood friend — in command. It’s what she’s used to.

What she’s not so used to? Dialogue. “I have 140 lines,” she said, shaking her head. “I know. I know. But the scenes go by really fast.”

The night before meeting with the other actors for the first time, Mearns had a nightmare about being trapped in a scene rehearsal. “It wasn’t like I was scared,” she said. “But I didn’t know what I was doing.”

But once she started rehearsing in reality, it all fell into place. “I realized that the way actors rehearse is the way I rehearse dance,” she said. “When you mess up, you do it again.”

Bergasse and Mearns spoke about the production at City Center recently. What follows are edited excerpts from that conversation.

Q: Why did you want to take this on?

Mearns: When I learned it was Balanchine choreographing it at the time for his wife, I was like, oh my God, that’s so sweet. But also, in my head, I was like, this is going to be really scary. I didn’t really think about the fact that I would be acting. A year ago, I thought, OK. Wait a minute. What is this? [Bergasse laughs] He turned to me and said, “You need to start getting into acting lessons.”

Bergasse: I did it early only because I know how busy she is.

Mearns: The woman I was working with has worked with a lot of dancers, and she knows how we approach acting. We are physical with it. Sitting down and just reading something doesn’t really work for us. We started to figure out what is this angel? Is she innocent? Is she a woman? Is she escaping heaven?

Q: Is your Angel innocent?

Mearns: I don’t think I’m innocent. I have rules in heaven. I can’t tell a lie.

Bergasse: She’s naïve about the ways of mortals. By coming down to earth, she has to learn to be a little more mortal while not giving up who she really is.

Mearns: The Angel realizes these humans are terrible, lying people doing all of these terrible things.

Q: Is there a challenge for you in the dancing?

Mearns: It’s my stamina — I have to speak and dance. I can’t be talking to someone and be huffing and puffing.

Bergasse: They were worried about her volume and breath. Is it going to be even harder when she has the point shoes on and is bourrée-ing? Actually, it became easier for her.

Mearns: My acting coach was worried. And then I put my point shoes on and she said, “Oh my God, your voice just got lower.” Like it settled back in.

Q: How did you reimagine the dances?

Bergasse: Seeing the production photos [from the original] was really eye-opening. In [the song] “How to Win Friends and Influence People,” there’s a 10-second clip of a tap dance. I didn’t know how much they actually tapped and what the style was, but it really showed me they were really hoofing.

Mearns: I do a little soft-shoe in “The Surrealist Ballet,” because I was a tapper. Christian and I were big tappers. We competed.

Q: Could this show turn into anything bigger?

Bergasse: I don’t think so. It’s so of a time. The direction Broadway is going is kind of the opposite of doing these pieces.

Q: It could be political in an interesting way: the decay of civility and how it’s OK to lie?

Mearns: In that way, it’s very relevant. It is about telling the truth and about how people don’t tell the truth now or how you have to learn how to mask things.

Bergasse: We had two women adapt the script, and they basically went through it with a #MeToo pen. It’s more palatable for an audience in 2019, but it still gets across the same humor, the same relationships. This story is really the battle of the sexes.

You don’t want to get rid of that because that still exists and that’s fun, but you want to get rid of the grossness. [Laughs] The horrible sexism.

Q: How does Josh’s choreography feel?

Mearns: It’s fun. Like that whole harp solo. I do — what is it called?

Bergasse: The Lindy Hop.

Mearns: There it is. The Lindy Hop.

Bergasse: The Angel starts playing the harp at this party to entertain, and everybody falls asleep, so she decides to change the rhythm of the harp solo and she swings it. She gives it a swing rhythm. I thought, wouldn’t it be kind of fun if it was based in swing dance? So we took stuff from Lindy Hop.

Mearns: And I wouldn’t normally do that ever. Anywhere.

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Event Information:

Encores!: “I Married an Angel”

Wednesday through Sunday, City Center, Manhattan; nycitycenter.org

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.