The Nutcracker: a Performance Dissected by My Twisted Mind
The Nutcracker. An event as much the holiday season as It’s a Wonderful Life and rum-soaked fruitcake. Or that may not be fair…Wonderful Life gets people fake- (or real-) gagging and fruitcake, well, does the same. Some may agree regarding this beloved ballet, but The Nutcracker doesn’t make my stomach turn…
It gets me giggling.
I admit I have a twisted, ever-the -wheels-a-turning mind, but don’t get me wrong. I love The Nutcracker. It’s an all-around gorgeous feast for the ears and eyes and draws the audience in with its beauty. Tchaikovsky, Petipa and Ivanov knew what they were doing when they birthed this baby. My family first saw The Nutcracker performed at a local theatre in Wisconsin and a couple weeks ago my daughter and I took in a professional staging at our local college. Both performances were different but beautiful in their own way. Different not just in the resumes of the dancers, but for me as a mom. I experienced the first performance through the eyes of my young kids…what they liked was vivid and mesmerizing; what they didn’t, I totally missed because I was trying to corral their wiggles and protests into their seats with whispers and Jelly Bellies. But the second time around, with better seats and with an awestruck 12-year-old daughter, I got to drink in the finer aspects of each scene, sometimes to my own twisted result.
It’s amazing how artists can tell a story without one word of dialogue, and even more astounding they can do it through dance and in pointe slippers to boot (no pun intended). But what gets me is the dudes. I have nothing but complete and utter respect for the confidence and security the men in The Nutcracker have for getting in front of a packed house while wearing tights. I mean, dude looks like the David. Except David gets to be marble. It takes a special kind of courage to do what these male performers do, no matter how athletic they are. And these guys are athletic. Don’t let anyone tell you differently just because there isn’t a football or basketball involved. These men rock.
And the women, athletic as well. My daughter and I sat several rows back but we could still see the well-defined leg muscles on Clara as she gracefully and effortlessly spun on her toes. I can’t imagine coping with body image stressors common in ballet, the pressures of physical judgement, while staying true to your artistic craft. I respect anyone who can move through these issues and go on stage to perform beautifully and flawlessly. Strength of body, strength of character.
But as the performance glided across the stage, I began imagining (Clara’s influence, no doubt), and here’s where my giggling comes in. The Sugar Plum Fairy needs no introduction, although she is a showcased and cherished character in The Nutcracker. She is one who must be carefully cast or the whole thing is a bust. In this performance, she was blonde, appeared to be about six-feet tall, and lean but not a stick insect, which I was pleased to see. Graceful and smiling. Several times the staging took her to exit stage left or right, only to appear from a door upstage and center. I couldn’t help but imagine a prima donna alter-ego emerging backstage, her smiling, regal demeanor replaced by growling and the shoving of mice and men and Clara (get outta my way!) as the Sugar Plum Fairy dashed to her perfectly-timed reappearance from the rear of the stage. That said, I’m sure the dancer is a perfectly sweet girl, a total team player who would never storm around backstage. But this post is in full disclosure of my twisted musings and I am an open book. (Still, be honest, can’t you just see this happening?)
To an audience, most missteps are going to go unnoticed. To the performers, those same missteps are dissected post-performance. This is a professional company, and the work never ends to learn from even the slightest error. But I swear I caught something. I really don’t think I imagined it. Clara made her entrance from upstage during a rather busy scene with many dancers performing in unison. When Clara appeared, legs were everywhere, midair, and if I had blinked at the wrong time, I would have missed Clara dodging, ever so slightly and merely inches to her right, an arabesque-d leg. I breathed a sigh of relief for a young lady who deftly avoid a fat lip or a black eye from a pointe slipper. Whew. Then I thought, how often are ballerinas kicked in the face? So of course I was distracted by ballet facial injuries and found myself silently mulling over the weird irony of that question. Kung Fu Ballerinas.
But, I wasn’t preoccupied for long. The Nutcracker is way too mesmerizing to not be drawn back into the beautiful choreography, costuming and music, and smiling performers. I cannot wait until next year to take in the sheer beauty of it all, again.
