"THE NUTCRACKER" FOR BELTWAY NERDS

Nutcracker New York may have the Rockettes, but Washington has ...a big tree in front of the White House? It’s nice to look at, but hardly makes for an evening’s worth of entertainment. But this year the city unveiled a new holiday tradition of its own. Septime Webre, the artistic director of the Washington Ballet, offered a decidedly local twist on Tchaikovsky’s "The Nutcracker".

This timeless Christmas ballet has been reimagined many times, but Webre's version strikes a particularly patriotic chord. His Nutcracker Prince was none other than George Washington, ballet tights and all (what would Martha think?), while the dastardly Rat King was a red-coated and rather sinister looking King George III (British expats were left to squirm). Centuries of political tensions aside, the sight of America's powder-wigged first president prancing about the stage was a fantastic one. Indeed, it’s astonishing the parallel hasn’t been made before: both had a knack for saving the day, both saw enormous fashion potential in tight pants and both had wooden teeth.

The first act’s famous party scene is set in 1882 Georgetown and hosts the toast of Washington. Frederick Douglass mills among the party guests, and Herr Drosselmeyer’s enchanting holiday performance (as the character who supplies the gift of the nutcracker to young Clara) includes a Native American kachina doll dance and a King George-inspired Humpty Dumpty doll. This Clara is a Washington girl through and through, with prominent characters of American history traipsing through her whimsical dreams. Betsy Ross clutched a colonial American flag and Benjamin Franklin held the string of a flying kite as they danced with Clara and her Nutcracker Prince.

In the second act, the Sugar Plum Fairy was rechristened the Cherry Blossom Fairy (the cherry trees on the Mall are a source of local pride). She and her attendants bound about against a backdrop of Washington’s Tidal Basin, wondrously abloom with its celebrated cherry blossoms in the dead of winter.

The next dances featured heavy nods to America’s multicultural heritage. There was a Spanish dance with costumed matadors and the sound of castanets; a Chinese dance with bright orange fans and silk-frocked fisherman; a duet of Anacostia Indians backed by tribal beats; a bunch of Barnum Circus clowns frolicking around a 19th century carousel; and a score of frontier men and woman making Russian high kicks look remarkably American. (Davy Crockett’s coon-skin hat is not unlike a Russian fur cap if you don’t think about it too much.) The curtain closes on Clara clutching her Nutcracker, a miniature George.

Purists may have felt neglected, but many in Washington are already predicting this Nutcracker will become a mainstay of future seasons.

~ RACHEL TEPPER

Picture credit: jelene (via Flickr)