Dancers come and go, The Hard Nut fresh as ever

Yes, Virginia, there is a Sugar Plum Fairy in Mark Morris’ The Hard Nut. Styled the Housekeeper/Nurse, her every emphatic bourrée on pointe, every shoulder shimmy, and every knowing side-eye was honed to perfection by Brandon Randolph on opening night. His character surveyed the swinging 70s Stahlbaum household in Act 1 and the royal family in Act 2 (same family, sporting coronets) with equal parts exasperation and compassion. 

She loped delicately on pointe through the Stahlbaums’ Christmas party, pushing a cocktail cart, occasionally flicking a leg up effusively. At one point during the drunken melee, she retreated to a corner to execute a flawless, dramatic ballet adage that low-key upstaged everyone else in the scene. This Housekeeper/Nurse had everyone pegged.

A nursemaid in drag is only one of Morris’ glorious subversions of the traditional American Nutcracker. In his send-ups of the suburban family, the military, the aristocracy, and the classical ballet world, he leans hard into democracy, embracing inclusiveness. Since the Mark Morris Dance Group premiered The Hard Nut in Brussels in 1991, the dance world has more or less caught up to Morris' progressive innovations. But no other production that I’ve seen conjures the same wacky thrills as this Nut's Snow scene in which men and women in sparkly abbreviated tutus, crop tops and Italian meringue headdresses gallop on and off stage in intricate patterns, flinging handfuls of fake snow on precise counts with a gleeful vehemence bordering on wrath.

Just as wild are the nonconformist Flowers in bright scalloped dresses and swim caps like cabbages who barrel through an aerobic routine, leading with their heads, like heliotropic flowers that track the sun’s movement. They alternately slump and sway their upper bodies, flip back half-somersaults that flaunt underpants and well-developed glutes, and bourrée with stiff spines, hands forming tight buds overhead, with unaccountably threatening looks on their faces. The painted backdrop was suggestive of a carnivorous pitcher plant.

Morris tackled the racist clichés often embedded in Act 2’s swing through the ethnic enclaves of Candyland with less ingenuity. He had dancers mimic traditional steps and fail comically – like the Spanish “bull” essaying the back-arching Plisetskaya jump. Or he swathed them in costumes that made it physically impossible for them to even try – Russian villagers swallowed up by patchwork caftans, and a bumbling Arabian temptress tripping over the jangling hem of her burqa. It would have been more in keeping with the adventurousness of the enterprise to redraw the world map – which with its blinking red lights looked like a fixture from the MI6 command center – and invent new countries.

Beneath the camp and satire lies a poetically crafted tale of a first love that blossoms in a combat zone. Our heroes first meet on the battlefield fighting giant mice. On opening night, fleet-footed Mica Bernas traced Marie’s arc from dutiful child in a chaotic family to intrepid warrior and young lover while Domingo Estrada, Jr., made his debut as Nutcracker/Young Drosselmeier. He got two pas de deux: the first with the older Drosselmeier, danced here by Billy Smith, a veteran in the role. 

This Drosselmeier is less sinister than most, more man-about-town, though he possesses the mysterious power to bend people to his will. His behavior toward Marie is tender and avuncular, and his duet with his younger self poignant and noble, a dance meant to impart wisdom and emotional intelligence. This pairing was less persuasive than past ones I’ve seen, for there didn’t seem to be much of an age difference between Estrada with his chiseled, matinee idol looks and the youthful, debonair Smith.

Estrada and Bernas’ pas de deux was sweet and funny, featuring lots of kisses designed to look spontaneous, as if they forgot to do bits of choreography because they were so taken up with kissing.

Engaging individual performances aside, it’s the ensemble work that most captivated. In it we saw the heroic effort required of disparate physiques to execute challenging steps and stay together on the music – as in the whirlwind of pirouettes typically assigned to men, in which the whipping leg must remain fully extended. These are done in Act 2 by mixed company. It was exhilarating to witness them as a body tackle this bravura step and to cheer them on, the opening night audience completely invested in their success. This is a small company; thus bewhiskered rats, GI Joe soldiers, flowers, snow and party guests all showed up to tackle those grands pirouettes – as if the world had come together to celebrate a youthful romance.

Opening night was marred only by the failure of house lights to dim during the overture and the Act 2 opening music. Precious minutes of Tchaikovsky, irresistibly played by the MMDG Music Ensemble, were drowned out by audience chatter.