Deconstructing the Nutmare

Once upon a time, in long-ago and faraway Russia, “The Nutcracker” was just another ballet, just another proper noun in the theater. As in: “ ‘The Nutcracker’ opened this week to mixed reviews at the Maryinsky Theatre.” But sometime after that 1892 premiere--specifically the last half of this century, after it found its way to every American town that has more than five people with ballet shoes and a Tchaikovsky CD--”Nutcracker” became an adjective open to interpretation. As in: “Dear Lord, it’s ‘Nutcracker’ season again,” said joyfully or cynically according to mood. Later still, after piped music brought the Waltz of the Flowers into every elevator and supermarket, “Nutcracker” became a verb, as in “I think I’m all ‘Nutcrackered’ out.” And now, a noun has emerged, especially for those who stage “Nutcrackers” during which Tchaikovsky competes with the cries of restless 4-year-olds: “Nutmare.”

What other ballet has entered the popular imagination with such linguistic and musical force? Not to mention its significant marketing success (check the images on your wrapping paper, guest towels and tree ornaments). Yet, “Nutcracker”-bashing is an annual sport in the dance community. The frequency and familiarity of the ballet (in 1990, Newsweek estimated the number of annual U.S. productions at more than a thousand) have led us all to take it for granted. It’s dismissed as a Christmas cliche, mandatory programming for financially strapped artistic directors who long to be doing something more meaningful, in unitards.

New work is great, of course, but is there a ballet more meaningful to more people than “The Nutcracker”? Not yet, not regularly. Nut-bashers are missing the point: Repetition doesn’t necessarily equal boredom--it can also equal power.

“Nutcracker” has not been dubbed a tradition, a rite of passage and a ritual for nothing. It’s a secular ritual, of course, but like the sacred, it comes with its own mythology, significant associations and (usually not articulated) messages. The story is familiar--girl gets doll, doll comes to life, fights for its life and takes her on a journey to a strange and wonderful land. It’s about realizing your dreams, people say when asked; it’s about loving and believing in something and getting rewarded; it’s about family and bonding at the holidays.

Dance critics have sometimes written about the hidden meanings in “The Nutcracker.” In the ‘40s, Edwin Denby (with a nod to then-trendy Freudianism) thought that an elderly bachelor (Drosselmeyer) giving a priapic carved toy (the Nutcracker) to young Clara had “harrowing” associations. And he saw Clara’s escape into Candy Land in the second act as a perfect antidote to her repressed, middle-class home, not to mention a great suite of “graceful, clear” classical dancing that creates a kind of “social harmony.”

But mainly, dance experts have caviled and carped about the ballet for years--current versions aren’t authentic, its plot is weak, the dancing is limited by too many children! Why, the Russians don’t even bother to do it every year, we are told, as if Americans must look to Russian authorities for permission to invent a new tradition from an old ballet. “The Nutcracker” may have been born in Russia, but there are no two ways about it--it has achieved everlasting life in this country.

Technically, it all began back in the ‘40s, when the Ballets Russes toured North America with a one-act “Nutcracker.” Then came this country’s first full-length version, by San Francisco Ballet in 1944, and George Balanchine’s 1954 production for New York City Ballet, which with its rave reviews and annual revivals had considerable influence on the trend. But what dance history often overlooks is the way “Nutcracker” music first floated into American ears--via Disney’s animated feature “Fantasia” (1940), which used several cuts from the Tchaikovsky score. Although it had dancing mushrooms and fish instead of ballerinas, “Fantasia” made an impact with its airy images, even leading some young viewers to eventually look for the real thing.

That could be found on television throughout the ‘50s and ‘60s, when familiar ballets were a favorite way for commercial networks to include some “high culture” that would also be accessible and popular. Several TV “Nutcracker” productions were narrated by celebrities, and the majestic grand pas de deux seasonally dotted “The Ed Sullivan Show” and “The Bell Telephone Hour.” In other words, the ballet entered our turf in an audience-friendly way, through cartoons, or in our living rooms.

There are other reasons the United States was fertile soil for “The Nutcracker” to take root. For one thing, this is a country that values its notions of childhood, and the “Nutcracker” started to boom along with the baby boomers, who seem particularly reluctant to let childhood fantasies go. As well, the idea of an old-fashioned Christmas has always been popular here. “The Nutcracker’s” original 19th century German setting, or some version of Victorian nostalgia, reinforces commercial images that conjure a time when all families were extended and happy. It doesn’t matter that there never was such a time--the “Nutcracker” invents it. And among people with a European heritage (or perhaps just a fondness for its aesthetics and themes), the language of “The Nutcracker”--ballet itself--retains noble and dignified associations that make it appropriate for celebration of a major holiday. In Europe, it’s just an art form; here it’s high culture but high culture in which your 5-year-old can participate.

In addition to all that, “The Nutcracker” is a neat compromise for a country that on the one hand fetishizes the Christmas holiday and on the other mythologizes its own religious tolerance. The ballet can coexist with religion, but it’s also a rite to which celebrants can bring their own spirituality. “Nutcracker” aficionados may celebrate the family in the first-act party scene, or cheer when good triumphs over evil in the battle scene (innocently enjoyed because it involves mice) or tell their children that bravery like Clara’s will earn a “heavenly” reward.

And for that special class of celebrant--aspiring dancers--”The Nutcracker” is a rite of passage, in which they grow through roles that lead to the Sugar Plum Fairy, or retirement. Either way, they have a taste of the devotion required by ballet as a “sacred” calling.

Children and families who may experience these “Nutcracker” associations do not simply do so as observers--they also embody these beliefs by dancing them out in scores of nonprofessional, community productions. “The Nutcracker” belongs to people in a way few ballet or modern works do. So many amateurs have danced in it, there’s usually one near you. Maybe your child was a party guest or a bonbon, your cousin was a teenage snowflake, your accountant was drafted to play the grandfather one year.

And somewhat surprisingly, amateur versions don’t suffer from inferiority complexes. If you know a local production, you may acknowledge that the Baryshnikov-Kirkland version you see on TV is much more brilliantly danced, but wasn’t that young woman down the block a pretty good Sugar Plum when she was 17? In the case of “The Nutcracker,” the amateur world coexists happily with the world of big ballet, usually overlapping it in the popular imagination, so that all “Nutcracker” participants are felt to have something in common. Yes, the pros dance well and have larger budgets, but when you have a barn and put on a show from scratch, the way you’ve personalized the tradition becomes equally or more important.

As with most rituals, community “Nutcrackers” can succeed in a deeply rewarding way or fail when reflecting the shortcomings of societies around them. Where there are rituals, there are in-groups and out-groups, and the mostly white, thin ballet world occasionally has some nasty unwritten rules. There have been times when dancers of color were refused roles, and self-appointed aesthetic police have blown the whistle on plump candy canes. And among the subculture of “volunteer parents,” who sew mouse ears on costumes or play guests in the party scene or raise the money to put on the performances, there are inevitably times when the rhetoric of community is drowned out in melees over who’s in charge and exactly why didn’t my daughter get the gold costume.

But when a community “Nutcracker” experience is working, it can create some of the harmony and magic the season is supposed to contain. Many, many “Nutcrackers” feature color-blind casting and performers of different shapes and sizes. Even boys and men--usually so afflicted by a fear of tulle--can be drafted. Whole families end up playing families in the party scene, and whole new families are formed through seasonal performance bonding amid artificial snow that clumps and angels whose cardboard halos slip over one eye.

Elsewhere in the world, “The Nutcracker” is still just a ballet, performed occasionally at Christmas or maybe in July, but here it has become a hallowed national trust. In a significant move toward total assimilation, Hartford Ballet has just announced a version that replaces all the European characters with real personalities from American history--19th century actress Lotta Crabtree replaces Clara, Mark Twain attends the first-act party and the Christmas tree becomes a mighty California redwood. This on the heels of Hillary Rodham Clinton decorating the White House in a “Nutcracker” motif last year (Chelsea danced in it for years). Artisans from across America were commissioned to carve mice, commemorate Tchaikovsky in needlepoint and stitch a Christmas stocking that featured “Nutcracker” soldiers guarding the Capitol building.

One proof of how powerful a tradition the ballet has become is the number of satires and spoofs that arise from it. Each year, the wickedly fun and politically potent takeoffs increase. On the professional level, Mark Morris’ “Hard Nut” transports the action hilariously to the ‘60s and does some welcome gender-bending casting. Among community productions, there are now dance-along “Nutcrackers” (bring your own tutu) and versions that feature cameos by local politicians or celebrities. It’s a healthy trend, as are the culturally diverse “Nutcrackers” popping up--contemporary choreographer Donald Byrd’s “Harlem Nutcracker,” which adds elements like jazz, gospel and a reverence for age--things Byrd considers important to many African Americans--to the traditional mix. Or the local production (currently taking a year off) of a bharata natyam “Nutcracker”--perhaps the only version that ditches Tchaikovsky (unsuitable for classical Indian dance). For the second-act “ethnic” dances, choreographer Viji Prakash does not use Eurocentric interpretations of indigenous dances, as in most ballet versions; instead, she uses local practitioners of various world dance traditions--the hula or belly dance.

And why not? In the new year, if you are going to feel--as one critic put it--”one more ‘Nutcracker’ closer to death,” why shouldn’t you choose the version you like best to help you celebrate the December holidays?

If you like dance at all, that is. Surprisingly, to “Nutcracker” fans, there’s a whole section of the population not familiar with this yearly tradition. They must be roasting chestnuts over an open fire, while glued to the TV waiting for Jimmy Stewart to cry. An OK tradition maybe, but without the performing and community-bonding element, it doesn’t seem like much of a ritual to me.