The Houston Ballet's holiday presentation of The Nutcracker reviewed
The Houston Ballet's annual run of The Nutcracker ended early this month, and, for the first time since they began showing it in 1980-something, I saw it.
The plot, which initially seemed to be some paranoiac diabetic's NutraSweet™-induced extended hallucination, is a one hour and fifty five minute expansion on the Night Before Christmas's couplet "the children were nestled all snug in their beds/while visions of sugar plums danced in their heads." While I always found that line to be somewhat surreal (I don't think I've ever dreamt of glucose-enhanced fruits or vegetables that could dance), I can't say that seeing it interpreted by a woman in a tutu makes it any less bizarre.
But it's a harmless story for kids and it's a charming, turn-of-the-century look back at the traditions of Christmas, right? Sadly, I must report it is not. After a careful analysis, I have determined that The Nutcracker is far more sinister (in both the traditional and contemporary definitions of 'sinister') than that.
The story told in this ballet is no less than a full frontal attack on the hegemonic monoculture imposed by corporate globalization as exemplified by Disneyland's "It's a Small World" ride. This is pretty impressive, since the ballet premiered in 1892.
Act I starts at the Christmas party, where the children (who represent various developing countries) are all given presents for following the value-system imposed on them by the adults (western countries). These gifts include weapons, dolls and alcoholic beverages. The dolls stand for the increase in population that western science causes in traditional cultures, the drinks represent the mixed moral messages from the adults (the adults give it and then scold the children for taking it) and the weapons are, of course, weapons. Toy Soldiers (both dolls and guns) represent the increasingly common phenomenon of school-age children who are soldiers. The Nutcracker clearly shows us that this is a direct consequence of the gifts of the adults.
One of the elderly adult men displays a disturbingly sexual interest in one of the otherwise anonymous young girls. While we frequently see the children getting punished for using the toys (especially the toy-weapons) they are given (despite the encouragement of the children by other adults), there are no consequences for the adults who decided to give toy-weapons to the children. It is the child who is punished for misbehaving and the adult who encouraged him/her just wanders off to find another child to influence.
Into this depressing but relatively static scene Dr. Drosselmeyer enters. The Doctor, whose name is a combination of words for "slut"[1] and "Talmudic scholar", represents the subornation of spirituality by technology. Drosselmeyer produces four clockwork dancers who amuse and delight both children and adults in their soulless, promiscuous imitation of the rituals of human courtship. That Dr. Drosselmeyer was not cast as a woman just shows the essential sexlessness of the march of technology.
Clara, who represents the women of the developing world is given a special gift by Dr. Drosselmeyer--a Nutcracker. The appearance of this oversized, ribbed, lacquered wooden cylindrical object makes it clear that it represents technological advances in sexuality and reproduction (such as condoms, birth control, and abortion). Clara is delighted with her gift but Fritz (her brother) is not. Fritz fears the power this gives to Clara and so chooses to steal it. He rips the Nutcracker from her hands.
Fritz runs with it for a bit and then breaks it, showing his dominance over this psycho-castrating toy that the adult world provided his sister. The adults (representing the developed countries) naturally blame Fritz for acting wrongly and he is punished. He and his concerns are not addressed any further in the story. Clara is thus detached from her her traditional support system and has no one to turn to but Drosselmeyer. One wonders if he planned it this way...
Dr. Drosselmeyer repairs the damage done to The Nutcracker, showing the victory of technology over traditional power. The party ends, the guests leave, and Clara is left alone with her special present. She sets it aside and goes to sleep.
Dr. Drosselmeyer suddenly (and menacingly) appears in the young girl's bedroom--an act that should have been unthinkable to the protectors of the girl. Drosselmeyer is not satisfied with the state of affairs he sees (with the Nutcracker separated from Clara, who has attempted to set it aside. Drosselmeyer will not rest until she cannot live without it.) He summons his ally, the Rat King (Mickey, who represents the 'cute' images presented in western media of substantially 'uncute' creatures and acts, (thus Mickey is a symbol of the dehumanizing effect that violent images have on observers)) and his army of Rats (who represent the omnipresence of western imagery).
As expected, Clara feels threatened by the Rats and runs for safety to her technological crutch, Drosselmeyer's Nutcracker. The Rat King and the Nutcracker are not, as superficially depicted, adversaries, but rather foils, forcing Clara to choose between them without presenting her with any choice that doesn't rely on Drosselmeyer's technological imperialism. The rats and the toy soldiers make Clara feel as if the world is much bigger than she ever thought it could be. Clara shrinks as she loses her self-esteem and is disempowered by the conflict over her. This drives her to choose a protector,
Clara chooses, helping the Nutcracker to "defeat" the Rat King Mickey. She is now fully dependent on the Nutcracker in the way that third world countries are dependant on the first world technologies they adapt to "defend" themselves from other western influences. Her isolation from her brother keeps her from realizing the scam they (Drosselmeyer, the Nutcracker Prince, and Mickey) have perpetrated on her. They could not lose, since Clara would have been in the same position had she chosen Mickey.
The Nutcracker, whom she sees as a prince and as a romanticized ideal person instead of a soulless creation of technological 'progress', becomes her love interest and she subsumes her will to him, unquestioningly allowing him to lead her to some very unpleasant places.
First he changes her home, once a productive farmhouse, into "the Land of Snow". Clara is forced to watch as her love, The Nutcracker Prince, promiscuously dances with the Snow Queen and her snow flakes. This shows how Clara, detached from her own world and her traditional support systems and values, is a passive participant in the mating dance of her ersatz technological lover and the world drug culture.
The dance of the Cocaine Queen is not the climax of the story, however, because The Nutcracker and Clara soon leave them. The Flakes are there not as an end, but to dissociate Clara from her native (developing world) sensibility and to provide her with a substitute (since the Nutcracker is, after all, only a substitute for a person, he cannot actually satisfy her incipient carnal needs).
Act I ends with the Nutcracker Prince, taking Clara away from her home (which is still the Land of Snow, now producing a new crop of Flakes for the world Flake economy rather than feeding than the indigenous 3rd world farmers.) and crossing the lemonade sea. Act II will open with them arriving in the Kingdom of Sweets.
Act II is both simpler and more insidious. It depicts the place that Clara can expect to have in the hegemonic monoculture and how she is expected to embrace the loss of her identity.
Clara arrives in the Kingdom of Sweets with her pseudohuman lover and are treated to a vision of the Sugarplum Fairy. The Sugarplum Fairy is the pinnacle of western culture and represents the inherent substancelessness of it. Clara is enticed to leave her spiritual path and follow the attractive but substanceless way of the confection. Tasty, but in the long run not a good choice. Sweets are a substitute for the love her Nutcracker 'lover' cannot actually provide. The land of sweets is designed to lower Clara's expectations of fulfillment--like the third world countries she represents, she abandoned her own ways to receive the attractive but ultimately unsatisfying candy that is all that Drosselmeyer's technological homonculous can offer.
While Clara's dessert is being prepared (without dinner), she is distracted by the so-called entertainment. This starts with a series of "national dances". First there are Spanish-branded dancers doing a 'typical' Spanish dance, which is a reasonably indistinguishable ballet done while in a Spanish costume. Then there are the Arab-branded dancers doing a 'typical' Arabic dance, which is a reasonably indistinguishable ballet done while in a Arabic costume. The costume involved swords, but they could not defend the arabs from becoming essentally western--native differences are reduced to marketing and tourism. The Russian dancers and Chinese dancers complete the sequence, showing clearly that there is nowhere Clara can turn that is not an arm of the global monoculture.
If you watch carefully, you can see their arms move. Sometimes they perform the first verse and sometimes the second. If you listen you think you can hear them sing "there is just one moon and a golden sun and a smile means friendship to every one..." And we, sophisticated audience that we are, know that the Nutcracker Prince has delivered Clara to the Rat King Mickey to have her culture reduced to "colorful native dress". The insidious plot is complete and the alliance of the Prince and the King under the auspices of Drosselmeyer are done. Clara, who once feared the Rat King is now embracing his minions.
The Dance of the Flowers shows how this maginalization continues and to what end. The flower is clearly meant to represent the value western culture places on disguising any differences between self and the ideal western image. The dance centers around a giant puppet costumed dancer whose identity is completely masked. This penultimate dance shows the end result of monoculture--we cannot tell where this flower came from or what she might be beneath the costume, the painted face, the wig, the arms on strings. One can almost hear her say "Do you want fries with that?" She has become the lowest common denominator that western culture approves of and is the role that Clara can expect in the global marketplace.
That Clara does not run in horror is attributable to her infatuation with the Nutcracker (technology), the appeal of the sweets, the loss of her traditional family, and the degradation of her home by the Cocaine Flakes. Poor Clara is at this point ready to accept her role and provide another market for the undesirable goods of the west. Clara is then treated to the Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy, providing her with her place in the hegemony--the promise of sweetness forever, so soon to be cruelly dashed.
She is returned to her home (still "the land of snow") and goes to bed, cradling the Nutcracker in her arms, firmly attached to the very being who sold her into slavery at Drosselmeyer's command. She has been alienated from her original nature and embraces the Nutcracker. One wonders if she still sees him as a prince or if she realizes that he is just a thing. As Drosselmeyer moves on to his next victim, one imagines Clara dancing in her 'typical, native costume' to entertain and trick the next young girl. Will she feel any pangs of jealousy as her quondam lover seduces another girl? How will Clara greet the next girl Drosselmeyer's Nutcracker serially seduces into subservience?
The curtain sets and this, dark, depressing cypher comes to an end, I sit, thinking of Orwell and I imagine the white-buttoned boot of the Rat King Mickey on Clara's neck forever.
I was stunned. I weep for the youth of today, who are told that this is a Christmas fable. How brave of the author to expose the horrors to the world and how cynical the Ballet Company is exploit this dark tale of victorious evil and package it as an exuberant holiday extravaganza suitable for children.
[1]http://machaut.uchicago.edu/cgi-bin/WEBSTER.sh?WORD=Drossel --Defines Drossel as "A Slut". So we're faced with Dr. Slut-Rabbi giving soulless presents to good Christian children who represent the developing world. The inherent anti-semitism of this is matched by the sexism, classism, and racism of the ballet in other specifics. This is one of the strongest examples.