PLAYBOT: Weird story behind The Nutcracker
Everybody knows The Nutcracker – the 100-plus-year-old ballet with music by the great Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky. But what is this thing really about, anyway?
In a nutshell – do you see what I did there? – someone seems to have spiked the kids’ eggnog on Christmas Eve.
Either that or the story’s creator Ernst Theodor Amadeus Hoffmann (known to friends as “ETA”) was into the laudanum when he wrote The Nutcracker and the Mouse King in 1816; it’s a barmy fantasy that predates Alice in Wonderland by at least 40 years.
The story deals with children caught in a battle between a magical Nutcracker soldier and an evil mouse king. Later they meet the Snow Queen, who gives them an ice boat (not advisable in real life) crewed by unicorns, in order to visit the Sugar Plum Fairy, who lives inside a giant egg. You can see this coming a mile away: The Nutcracker Prince falls in love with the Sugar Plum Fairy, and they celebrate with dancing candy while a single bee enters the palace to signal the end of winter, or something like that – which makes you wonder why they never stage this show in the spring. Clear?
You know what Frank Zappa said: Writing about ballet is like dancing about architecture, or words to that effect.
Crowds of families have been flocking to this show for years. More than 120 performers will be on stage for Alberta Ballet’s 10th anniversary production of The Nutcracker, at the Jubilee Auditorium Dec. 6-9, along with members of the Edmonton Symphony Orchestra and the Calgary Philharmonic Orchestra.
The Great Gatsby
Now this is getting eerie: This is at least the fourth Edmonton production this season set in the 1920s – and another work that depicts the time as not a happy place. Is it because it’s been 100 years, give or take, and we’ll soon be entering another unhappy “Roaring” ‘20s? Could be.
The Walterdale Theatre is mounting yet another ambitious project in this stage adaptation of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s famous tragic novel. Dealing with spoiled Long Island playboys and debutantes who pay the price for their greed and indolence, The Great Gastby has been made into numerous films, TV shows and stage plays. Something here just seems to connect with people.
For the show at the Walterdale Dec. 5-15, the theatre released a disclaimer that says a lot about the times – old and new: “The Great Gatsby is a piece of literary fiction that deals with mature themes including but not limited to racism, sexual promiscuity, violence, abuse (mental, emotional and physical), drugs use, alcohol abuse, and gambling.”
So be warned!
Ed the Sock
Has it come to this: That we’re getting our comedy from a cigar-smoking sock? Oh, but Ed the Sock is not just any old puppet. His creator and puppeteer Steven Kerzner came to fame on MuchMusic during the 1990s, using a blunt style of critical, political comedy – and could get away with more than many human comedians. Because, you know, he’s a sock. The most controversial hosiery in history is on the “War on Stupid Tour” that comes to Union Hall on Wednesday, Dec. 5.
The Birth of Christ, the Improvised Musical
To name it is to know it – but it’s rare for a longform improv show to base its plot on an audience suggestion from … God Almighty! The Birth of Christ?! Of course it’s a good idea!
Performers with The 11 O’Clock Number will mount what promises to be a blasphemous Biblical comedy at the Grindstone Comedy Theatre, Dec 7 at 7 pm.
Creatures of Impulse
One of Gilbert’s lesser-known, Sullivan-less works is being staged by the local theatre comedy Empress of Blandings at the Whitemud Crossing Public Library until Dec. 10. Originally a 1870 Christmas-themed short story, Creatures of Impulse is a farce about a landlord-tenant conflict that gets out of hand when the deadbeat tenant turns out to be an evil fairy who puts spells on people. Hate it when that happens. Wait, aren’t all fairies supposed to be good? What is the world coming to?
A Christmas Carol
All good things must come to an end – and who made up that rule?
The fact remains that this year will be the last production of the Charles Dickens Christmas confection adapted by Tom Wood, husband of the Citadel’s former artistic director Bob Baker. Wood played the lead when it premiered in 2000, and for a number of years thereafter. Other Scrooges include Glenn Nelson, John Wright, James MacDonald, and the current Scrooge Julien Arnold. Lions of Edmonton theatre all!
A Christmas Carol plays until Dec. 23 in the Maclab Theatre.
One’s imagination runs wild at what version of A Christmas Carol they’re going to come up with next year (it is a closely guarded secret), but we’re getting ahead of ourselves. This A Christmas Carol is a well-oiled machine from the olden school. It requires no fixing because it ain’t broken. It’s a comfy sweater you can’t bear to throw away. It’s all here: The miserly Scrooge, the put-upon Cratchit and poor little Tiny Tim; cue the three ghosts, Past, Present and Future, four if you count Jacob Marley, and all the other characters in a personal hallucination of a life almost misspent, and repented just in the nick of time. We all learn something in the end – especially Scrooge. Very heartwarming, tear-jerking, life-affirming, Christmasy spirit material here – and the story is 175 years old!
Matara
The sad and confounding saga of Lucy the Elephant is the inspiration for this new play by Edmonton’s Conni Massing. As in real life, the characters in Matara butt heads over what to do with a solitary elephant in a small zoo – the zoo in this case in danger of being flooded, so time is running out for the lonely pachyderm.
This play started at Workshop West’s “This is YEG: New Plays for a Changing City” project in 2015. Massing was “embedded” at the Valley Zoo, in contact with zookeepers and presumably Lucy herself.
Sure to ignite the debate anew, Matara stars Elinor Holt, Patricia Zentilli and Minister Faust (a local writer and broadcaster you don’t often see on a theatre bill), and also features a life-sized moving elephant created by puppeteer Randall Fraser and set designer T. Erin Gruber.
Matara will see its full-length debut at the Backstage Theatre until Dec. 8.
On the Verge
Travel the deepest jungles, the highest plateaus, the coldest tundra, and the most frightening trek of all – America in the 1950s! This is the premise for what is said to be Eric Overmyer’s most popular stage play – though of course he is best known for his TV writing, including St. Elsewhere and Law & Order.
Dun-dun …
In On the Verge, a Studio Theatre production at the Timms Centre of the Arts Nov. 29-Dec. 8, three adventurous 19th Century women embark on an epic journey – apparently a time-traveling one since they end up in the ‘50s – and “discover themselves” in the process. Did you ever wonder about this? Discover yourself? Why, I’ve been here the whole time!
9 to 5: The Musical
It’ll be interesting to see how this Dolly Parton vehicle will fly today – in an age when workplace sexual harassment is under such scrutiny. People remember the 1980 film as a harmless frippery with bad hair, a light-hearted office comedy about women hitting the glass ceiling and getting revenge on their horrible boss – and this has special resonance today.
Dolly, a great talent with a big heart, wrote the music and lyrics for the musical that premiered in 2008 and enjoyed a short run on Broadway. Now the MacEwan theatre students are taking a crack at it in a full-blown musical extravaganza. 9 to 5: The Musical plays until Dec. 8 at the Triffo Theatre at Allard Hall.
Miss Bennet: Christmas at Pemberley
Mary, the forgotten “middle child” in the famous Bennet family (in Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice) is the central character in this holiday favourite. It’s said to be a “sequel” (with air quotes) to Pride and Prejudice. Mary, to put it bluntly, is a nerd. She likes to read books and play the pianoforte (an earlier inferior version of the piano), and seems doomed to spinsterhood until a man named Arthur comes into her life. He’s a nerd, too.
Cue heartwarming romance at the Citadel Theatre until Dec. 9.
Canada 151
Apparently some hosers forgot about the Canadian sesquicentennial party and decided, “Oh, well, f*** it! Let’s celebrate Canada one year late!”
Any excuse for yet another jukebox musical, eh?
This one, on stage at the Mayfield Dinner Theatre until Jan. 27, is an oh-what-a-feeling oh-what-a-rush doozy of epic proportions. Music by Bryan Adams, Shania Twain, Celine Dion, Anne Murray, the Guess Who, Alanis Morissette, the Tragically Hip and many more is presented in a fantasy musical celebration that hits all the bases of the Canadian musical canon in a breathless two-and-a-half hour show. A great band, as always, does a fine job replicating all the different artists in their eras of history. Highly recommended.
