Daily Archives: December 8, 2006

The Nutcracker

Life

It’s a holiday season tradition, seeing the Washington Ballet perform The Nutcracker at the Warner Theatre. We meet Becky beforehand at Red Sage around the corner, have dinner, and then head over for the show.

Artistic Director Septime Webre reimagined the whole thing a couple of years ago, giving it a Washington setting and flavor: Clara living in a big house in Georgetown, the land of the Sugar Plum Fairy springtime under the cherry blossoms, that sort of thing. We had originally heard that there’d be some sort of George Washington Nutcracker battling a Mouse King George III – awful, dreadful, yuck – but thankfully it doesn’t go that far. True, the Russian dance is transformed into a frontiersman and women, but it’s okay. And the Arabian dance is Anacostia Indians, but that’s a really good touch. I’m underwhelmed by the Clara shrinking/Christmas tree growing special effect, but that’s a very minor point.

We have fun trying to figure out which dancers are dancing which parts. We had expected some sort of an announcement, at least for like Clara’s parents and the Sugar Plum Fairy. But, no, nothing.

Looks like Sona Kharatian and Erin Mahoney-Du switch off with each other on different nights, one playing Clara’s mother and the other in the Spanish Dance. Sadly this is Erin Mahoney-Du’s night to be Clara’s mother. Much less dancing, but at least she is completely lovely in a gorgeous deep rich red gown. My other favorite, Elizabeth Gaither, is the Snow Queen this year. Last year, or maybe it was the year before, she was the Sugar Plum Fairy. This year the SPF is Maki Onuki, and Dawn announces, correctly it turns out, that Jonathan Jordan will be her Cavalier.

Most amazing are the Anacostia Indians, Laura Urgelles and … we’re not sure who. He’s wearing a mask. The program says that it’s one of: Chip Coleman, Runqiao Du, Alvaro Palau, Tyler Savoie, Luis Torres. We can tell that it’s definitely not Chip Coleman or Runqiao Du. I’m reasonably sure that it’s not Luis Torres. Dawn’s sure that it’s not Alvaro Palau. (The next day’s review in the Post will say that it’s Alvaro Palau. Dawn stands by her determination.) Whoever it is, though, mightily and quite impressively lifts and holds Laura Urgelles straight up on one arm. Wow.

Mother Ginger in this production is called Mother Barnum, and she (although played by either Jason Hartley or Luis Torres) is a big merry-go-round. I like that a whole lot better than productions where she’s this giant and the kids (clowns, or, technically, Polichinelles) get like creepily birthed out from under her skirt.

It’s cold and windy when we get out, and we catch a cab home, the one day of the year that Dawn will take a taxi. And he’s just about the fastest craziest cab driver in the city, this guy is.

De mortuis nil nisi bonum

News

Jeane Kirkpatrick apparently died in her sleep last night. She was 80.

I yelled at her once. Not that she likely heard me, mind you, as she was at the time being yelled at by a lot of people. But I did yell at her.

Twas way back in the early eighties, when she was the US ambassador to the United Nations. She had come to the University of Minnesota to give a speech, which speech at the Northrup Auditorium was booed and jeered and heckled by many dozens of the students and guests present. I myself sat politely and just quietly listened and observed, until she began taking questions. Someone asked if we, meaning the United States and its citizens, bore some responsibility for the killings and atrocities and torture being carried out by the government of El Salvador, and by its proxies and death squads, since we supported the junta so heavily.

Ambassador Kilpatrick, with venomous condescention, explained, that by the same logic, the Americans who protested the Vietnam War now bore the responsibility for the behavior of the government in Hanoi. Oh, I was so mad. I stood up and just shouted obscenities at her.

Later, since it was the first Wednesday of the month, and around noon, we held our usual die-in1 on the steps of the auditorium. A news photographer snapped a picture of us, which photo ended up on the front page of the Minnesota Daily the next morning. You can see me beatifically propped on the steps in the background. I still have a copy. Found it recently when cleaning out the filing cabinet.

 

1 A die-in was like a sit-in, except that instead of sitting, you’d like fall down and pretend to be dead for five minutes. This we did on the first Wednesday of every month, when the civil defense sirens would go off. Maybe it wasn’t noon when they tested them. Maybe it was one. Or maybe noon. Doesn’t matter. The point was to protest the idea that maybe sirens and fallout shelters weren’t a particular wise policy vis-à-vis nuclear war. Maybe preventing nuclear war was the way to go.