BWW Reviews: THE HARD NUT at Brooklyn Academy of Music

If you're a fan of the classic Nutcracker ballet, based on an adaption by Alexandre Dumas, you will have mixed feelings about Mark Morris' irreverent interpretation, The Hard Nut, playing at the Brooklyn Academy of Music through December 20.

Based on the original, darker story, The Nutcracker and the Mouse King by E.T.A. Hoffman and the bold designs of cartoonist Charles Burns, The Hard Nut is visually stunning. But the artful staging and colorful costumes take precedence over the sweet coming of age romance between Marie (also known as Clara) and her Nutcracker Prince that's usually front and center.

Approaching its 25th year, Morris' bawdy re-imagining feels like The Nutcracker meets Hairspray. Set in the '70s, it features male and female characters in drag (notably the towering John Heginbotham as the family matriarch). But The Hard Nut doesn't have the heart of the John Waters musical, and much of the ballet's magic is lost in this cheeky translation.

As always, it's Christmas Eve, and young Marie (Lauren Grant) and her mischievous brother Fritz (June Omura) eagerly await their party guests. In this version, there's also a hormonal teenage sister, Louise (Jenn Weddel). Instead of several chatty chambermaids, the family has one, a sassy black housekeeper played to the hilt by Kraig Patterson. But I had a hard time reconciling how Morris was bold enough to challenge gender conventions, but completely missed the opportunity to challenge a glaring racial stereotype with his predictable casting of the help.

Conducted by Colin Fowler, the MMDG Music Ensemble does a fine job articulating Tchaikovsky's splendorous score, but Morris' diluted choreography doesn't rise to support the music's grandeur, with the exception of "The Waltz of the Snowflakes" scene that pops with unisex, glitter tossing dancers.

Alas there's no delightful "Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy." Bare feet and character shoes replace ballet slippers and pointe shoes in most of the scenes. And Act II inexplicably opens with a perplexing subplot about Princess Pirlipat, who was disfigured by the Rat Queen.

Another big letdown is the absence of the climactic pas de deux where the Nutcracker Prince supports Marie in an endless arabesque and they take turns wowing the audience with technically brilliant ballet leaps. In fact, there's not much interaction between the two lead characters at all. Instead, there's a touching duet between eye-patch and cape wearing Drosselmeier (Marie's eccentric uncle and godfather) and the Nutcracker Prince (here called Young Drosselmeier).

Whereas other productions only hint at the incestuous undertones, The Hard Nut makes it plain. In the clever ending, Marie is trapped inside the black and white TV she and her siblings watched in the opening scene. She kisses her uncle, who becomes the Nutcracker, and they walk off into the test pattern sunset together.

The bright moments, however, are too few and far between. And compared to the triumphant version of the Nutcracker I saw last year at BAM by the American Ballet Theatre (starring Misty Copeland), The Hard Nut lacks any meaningful impact.

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