The Nutcracker, Through 2017-Colored Lenses

Concert Review: Sheila E. Best End of Year List 2017

The Nutcracker, Through 2017-Colored Lenses

Are those figurines throwing alt-right hand signs?

As I sat in the audience last weekend watching our youngest daughter dance in Oakland Ballet School’s Nutcracker, it struck me like a sugar plum between the eyes: 2017 has changed EVERYTHING. You can’t even enjoy a good youth ballet for the thirtieth time– that’s not an alternative fact, we’ve seen this production thirty times since the girls started dancing in 2008 – without reflecting on how the world has changed in the past twelve months.

Let me count the ways.

Opening scene and its charming snowfall. I used to worry that the delicate soap flakes that flutter down from the rafters, eliciting “oohs” and “aahs” from the audience, would make the dancers slip. This year I thought, “At the pace we’re going with climate change and dismantling environmental protections, soap flake snow may soon be the only kind our children ever see.”
The entire house scene. This is the heretofore charming Act One setting in which two parents, three children, and one governess welcome a toymaker, Herr Drosselmeyer, and his apprentice for Christmas Eve festivities. Now it’s fraught at every turn.

Does the governess have family affected by harsh immigration rules? Is she herself a Dreamer? Could her very safety be at stake? Maybe that’s why she spanks the children so much but seriously, lady, don’t you worry that all that perfectly-on-the-beat spanking is going to contribute to childhood depression/anxiety/anger?
Oh, and now they’re gonna send the governess to answer the mysterious knock at the door, when it could be ICE agents?
Phew, it’s not ICE. It’s just your friendly neighborhood Roy Moore come to give gifts to three children under the not-so-watchful eyes of their parents. I think this might be called “grooming,” people. The Republican party in that town is probably trying to talk him into running for school board or town supervisor.
Phew, Drosselmeyer is definitely creepy, but seemingly more of an alcoholic than a pedophile (all those nips out of his hip flask.) Should there be an intervention?
Wait, maybe my instincts were right about Drosselmeyer – he suddenly appears stage left as Marie dances her big solo in the living room. Who let him back in? Was it ICE?

The fight scene between the soldiers and the mice. All the soldiers have guns. Whether they had bump stocks is hard to see from row J, but they probably do because everything is terrible and everyone has guns and the NRA is probably doing some backroom deal with the Rat King to upgrade his side’s firepower.
The Nutcracker and the Rat King fight over Marie. Did Harvey Weinstein direct this part? At one point they are literally pulling her arms in opposite directions (oh and hey, she’s the only one on pointe) and I wanted to scream “#metoo #metoo #metoo! Let her go!”
The Land of Snow. This is the Act 2 scene where a series of dancing Christmas Delights entertain Marie and her Prince.

Spanish Chocolate. Is this a commentary on the recent secession vote in Catalonia? Does the sole male dancer represent the Eurozone, post-Brexit?
Russian Licorice. I don’t recall snorting, “You mean, Russian INTERFERENCE,” derisively and scowling through this dance before 2017, so that was a first. Godspeed, Mueller.
French Bon Bons. As my daughter and her partners danced through this flirtatious little number, all I could think was the Trudeau and Macron bromance to which America can never be a party.
Mother Ginger. She has 800 children, depending on whether the Danspace dance studio is participating as guests that day. Think maybe she could use some family planning? Or was the Planned Parenthood in her community forced out by hypocritical Evangelical anti-choicers?

By the time we got the last notes of the finale, I was as exhausted as the male dancers who were hoisting ballerinas over their heads all day. And just like the ballerinas who are nursing their sore feet and exhausted muscles this week, I am going into recovery mode.

Because I heard the Spring Show might be Hansel and Gretel.

Drosselmeyer’s apprentice moonlights as a DJ, ya heard?