Saturday Matinee

Pacific Northwest Ballet Company Dancers and PNB School students in Nutcracker. © Angela Sterling

How do you take the same story of the Nutcracker, and present it in a myriad of different ways? At the same time of the year, tons of productions are staged all across the country. Some differences are small, such as naming the lead girl Clara or Marie, while other differences are bigger, with some renditions sticking to a basic sugary plotline while others layer diverse themes from Oedipal-like tensions to a coming-of-age story. It’s mind boggling to think of a world of different interpretations that can take place from the exact same story. It was my lucky experience to be able to experience a production (and company) I’d never seen before live, when I stopped by to see Pacific Northwest Ballet’s version of the Nutcracker during a recent visit to Seattle.

Pacific Northwest Ballet School student in Nutcracker. © Angela Sterling

While this production isn’t the most polished one out there, Kent Stowell/Maurice Sendak’s Nutcracker  cast its magical spell over the audience wrapped in a cashmere blanket of charm and nostalgia. Like an old childhood book that someone grows up with, this production was familiar in a heart-tugging way yet haunting in its dark stories about forests and goblins. And rightly so, since children’s book illustrator Maurice Sendak (of the ubiquitous children’s book “Where the Wild Things Are”) did the sets and designs for this production. His sets were one of the highlights of this production, charmingly retro in its two dimensional-ness and filled with childlike wonder. The set for the Snow Scene was especially breathtaking. I thought I even glimpsed a character from his book, “Where the Wild Things Are” in the background when the ship is sailing across the sea to the magic kingdom. One of the show’s strengths is in its approachability and appeal to a wide range of audiences, including those who are new to ballet of all ages. The big pas de deux that usually closes the show got broken up and inserted in between more group dancing, to break up what is usually the part when kids get restless. The choreography by founding artistic director Kent Stowell is appropriate to the story, but occasionally strays into the arena of repetition, even from the very beginning of the ballet with the pantomime of the Princess Pirlipat story. His choreography for the kids (a big reason why kids enjoy the Nutcracker) is fun but often they look like kids acting like adults (wagging of fingers at each other, for example), versus kids acting like kids acting like adults. The storyline also takes an unconventional turn with the inclusion of a story within the story, the story of Princess Pirlipat, a princess from a dream, who gets bitten by a mouse and turns “ugly” (the nightmare of every girl, you’ve got to instill beauty ideals early in kids I suppose) but gets saved by the prince. There’s a reason why this story isn’t often included in other Nutcrackers as it feels a bit out of place and irrelevant to the rest of the story, and it’s more puzzling when it gets repeated and accompanied to the music of Mozart, a completely different style of music from the romantic time period of Tchaikovsky. Despite all this, the production still soared with the audience thrilled at being wrapped up in childhood nostalgia in a show that appealed equally to adults as well as children.

Pacific Northwest Ballet principal dancers Kaori Nakamura and Jonathan Porretta in Nutcracker. © Angela Sterling

The Nutcracker offers Pacific Northwest Ballet an opportunity to show off its diverse array of dancers. My favorite for the night was the lead for the Flowers, soloist Lesley Rausch. Utilizing her height and long extensions to the fullest, she truly embodied the joy of dancing in her sweeping buoyant movements as she flowed effortlessly from one step to the next. Principal Kaori Nakamura danced the role of the adult Clara, with Jonathan Porretta as her Nutcracker prince. Nakamura danced with strong, clean lines and Porretta was a warmly gracious partner, but I found myself wishing that extensions were held a tad longer to express more the longing of young love and to take a bit off of the perfunctory edge. Jordan Pacitti embodied the role of Herr Drosselmeier with gusto in an especially complicated characterization of the unpredictable and eccentric uncle. As a company, the dancers seem to possess an intriguing contemporary quality, although I’d have to see more in order to make a more definitive statement.

Pacific Northwest Ballet Company Dancers and PNB School students in Nutcracker. © Angela Sterling.

This Nutcracker is one that reminds me of an old childhood teddy bear, eyes still twinkling with all its huggable warmth and evocative charm. In this Nutcracker, I was reminded of my own childhood hopes and fears of growing up, my dreams and nightmares, fairytale love and harsh reality. This production doesn’t sugar coat very much, which gives weight to this production. I agree with those that say that kids are drawn to these darker elements on stage and shouldn’t necessarily be shielded from all that. And judging from the enthusiastic audience response, no one else seemed to mind it either.

Pacific Northwest Ballet’s Nutcracker runs until December 30.

© Saturday Matinee Blog