The Nutcracker

Last night my mom and I attended Pacific Northwest Ballet's production of The Nutcracker for the first time. After years and years of Olympic Ballet's (OB) adaptation, I wasn't quite prepared for the changes that awaited me. Some thoughts:

1. Can someone please explain to me why the nutcracker doll was not actually a nutcracker? (On a similar note, why does tying a handkerchief around the doll's neck fix a series of stab wounds in his plush little sternum? It made much more sense with OB, where his head came off and the handkerchief was meant to keep it on.)

2. I've been going to the show for practically my whole life and only last night learned that it's drunkenness, not elderly fragility, that causes Uncle Drosselmeier to stumble about during the party scene. (This is like finding out when I was a kid that I couldn't marry Aladdin because he was an animated character.) "How come in Olympic Ballet he's staggering before the party even starts?" I asked my mom at intermission as I made my way down my list of first-act talking points. "Was he already drunk? Oh my god, was Drosselmeier pregaming? Did they even have pregaming in Nuremburg in the 1890s?"

3. I found a pair of black tights buried underneath some hats in the back of a bureau drawer. Anticipating how cold I would be in my dress, I pulled them on without conducting a thorough inspection of the rear section. When I got home and found an unseemly rip in the very spot I failed to examine, I was forced to deduce that I hadn't worn the tights since I sang "Colors of the Wind" in my sixth grade musical. (Which must mean that I had enormous legs in elementary school.)

4. My mom and I mourned the absence of Mother Ginger, who in the OB's Nutcracker is played by a man in drag harboring a gaggle of small children in his hoop skirt.

5. For the love of God, do not bring infants to The Nutcracker. There are cannons. They are loud. I almost cried.

6. Can someone with more knowledge of this Nutcracker production please deny or confirm my suspicion that several mice minions in the evil Mouse King's army were dressed to look like Muslims? (If they were, as they so blatantly appeared to be, that's offensive.)

I realize that all this snarkiness probably makes it seem like I found nothing of substance in the production. On the contrary. Despite the above attempts at humor and half-assed complaints, the ballet was beautiful. The sets and costumes were gorgeous, the orchestra was flawless, the dancing was incredible. I did miss the three-year-old Russian boys tripping over their hands and feet while attempting the "coffee grinder," but I gained an elegant peacock woman riding onstage in a golden cage so I count that as a victory.