STAGE WEST
  • Home
  • About David
  • Blog
  • Contact
  • David Coddon Fiction
  • Theatre Reviews
  • New Page

Theater reviews

Stage West

This “Nutcracker” is not what it seems to be

1/1/2014

0 Comments

 
​If ballet bores you, then we’ve got something in common. But don’t let the title of the year-end production at Carlsbad’s New Village Arts Theatre – The Nutcracker – throw you. This holiday show, directed by NVA’s Kristianne Kurner and running through Dec. 31, is very loosely based on the “Nutcracker” ballet libretto adapted from E.T.A. Hoffmann’s story, but its only significant dancing involves three precocious rats who speak in Cockney accents.
            The Nutcracker was conceived at the House Theatre of Chicago seven years ago, with a book by Jake Minton and Phillip Klapperich and music and lyrics by Kevin O’Donnell and Minton respectively. Its forgettable ballads, sung by 12-year-old star Abby DeSpain, take a back seat to the story about a little girl and her parents coping with grief at the holidays. This may strike you as a downer for a yuletide diversion, but there’s frolicking and pratfalls galore on the way to Clara’s (DeSpain, a young actress building a solid resume) coming to terms with the loss of her older brother in combat. These take place in the child’s imagination – or, depending on your own taste for fantasy, via “magic” imparted by her visiting uncle (David Macy-Beckwith). Not only does Clara’s brother Fritz manifest as a full-size toy soldier, but her other favorite toys (played by Shaun Tuazon-Martin, Brian Butler and Jennifer Paredes) come to life in colorful costumes by Jennifer Brawn Gittings. The villains are those dancing, menacing rats, portrayed with fiendish gusto by Michael Parrott, Amanda Morrow and Justin Tuazon-Martin). Though the true villain is death, which took Fritz (Edred Utomi) from Clara and their parents (Steve Froehlich and Rin Ehlers).
            The Nutcracker script strains for weightiness in places and though the production lasts only two hours, getting to the universal moment of clarity at the end requires more machinations than necessary. Still, when that clarity does come, it may bring a lump to your throat or revive a memory of someone you’ve lost and miss, especially at this time of the year. That alone makes New Village Arts’ holiday offering an appealing coda to the season. 
0 Comments



Leave a Reply.

    Author

    David L. Coddon is theater critic for San Diego CityBeat

    Archives

    January 2021
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    January 2016
    January 2015
    December 2014
    January 2014
    January 2013
    January 2012
    January 2011

    Categories

    All
    Theatre Review

David Coddon

About 
David Coddon Fiction
Theatre Reviews

Support

Contact
FAQ
Terms of Use
© COPYRIGHT 2017. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
  • Home
  • About David
  • Blog
  • Contact
  • David Coddon Fiction
  • Theatre Reviews
  • New Page