THE NUTCRACKER AT THE JUNCTION
Christmas can be crushing, tedious, bourgeois and boring. In the all pink living room of young Marie it is certainly all of these. Even the sofa is covered in clingfilm. In contrast the eccentric Uncle Drosselmeiir is full of fun - and understands Marie’s frustration, stuck in a house with a mother keen to get on with the Christmas dinner and an enemy of loud punk music. “Whatever happened to her?” the fun-loving brother asks sadly “ She used to go out in Doc Martins’ The poor woman has to get on with the dinner on her own whilst Marie and her Uncle Drosselmeiir dream their dreams .
It is he who gifts miserable Marie, thwarted in her ambition to be a rock star, the gift of a Nutcracker doll (as in the original play) and opens the world of self expression to her, far from the constraints of ballet practice which her sister excels at. From here on in the ‘ follow your rainbow’ theme takes over, despite objections - Marie’s mother wants help scraping the carrots and tidying up (the spoilsport) and in elegant fifties suit and pill box hat, represents the repression Marie resents. Will she find her rainbow? Or not.
Sadly for us, the first half never leaves the suffocating sofa and the (intentionally) naff Christmas tree and the news of John Major’s government (yes it’s all set in the 90s) The progression towards fulfilment in Marie’s dreams.plays out in a fight between the ballerina and the nutcracker on a dimmed stage, It is violent and quite alarming. The show’s dancers are superb but as masked figures with sinister snake tails ,their energy fuels an explicit sense of threat as they shout “Death Murder Vengeance’. Marie’s dreams are in fact nightmares. Even the famous mouse battle is violent,. The dancers are superb. But mostly shown with faces entirely hidden by mysterious all over lycra covering. Athletic and artistic but threatening.
Marie’s ambition is to be a rock star. Occasionally she hoists her leather jacket over her frilly frock and twangs wildly at her electric guitar. Her Uncle initially offered as a champion of her talent is himself a deeply dissatisfied figure His alternative persona is as.a Drag Queen - and when we do see him in that role, he is so unrecognisable I doubt whether the children in the audience make any connections between the two personae. In fact there is little for the children to engage with at all in the entire performance. . No audience participation, no feedback (other than a request for Christmas songs at the start) .The play is more. intent on its didactic mission where the mouse kingdom is a socialist Utopia ruined by in-flighting. This conveyed in one sentence .And we are still in the claustrophobic front room.
The programme explains quite a lot. Sarah Blanc features first. She is Artistic Director Choreographer and Writer. Not much room for challenge there. Sarah announces the play preparation “has been a joyous collaboration full of love and so much laughter”. For a piece which fails to raise a smile from the audience let alone laughter this is a bold claim. This is a dance show apparently. And the dancing when it appears is superb. But the script the idiom the preachy monologues and humourless script are very far from fun.
After the truly inspired Snow Queen of last year - this is a huge disappointment.
Part of the nightmare in The Nutcracker
