"How YOU doin'?"Last night we took Sparrow and Little Son to The Nutcracker. I'd always been severely perturbed by the premise, but it's a holiday tradition and magical and beautiful and.....totally perverted.
It starts innocuously enough.
A Christmas party, wives kissing cheeks, husbands shaking hands, children frolicking....ah, but one child isn't. A child, that is. Clara, the lead, is more of a young woman now, caught in that nubile stage between woman and girl. She doesn't quite fit in either world and it becomes obvious when she must surrender her Christmas doll to a late-coming little girl. I hear Nabokov sighing in his grave.
The doll represents young girlhood and the carefree domestic naivete children celebrate when they play "house", never fully understanding what goes on behind closed doors. Clara is availed of the illusion and understandably, she weeps.
But the scene turns dark as one final guest arrives. The Creepy Uncle. Uncle Drosselmeier appears, his eye patched so that he can only see the burgeoning young woman in Clara, the child hidden from him. He brings all of the trappings of a magician--an irresistible character to children. But his top hat, cape and eye-patch are indicative not only of his dark desires, but of Clara's as well.
Clara tearfully greets her Uncle as he produces gifts for the children, and every gift he proffers to Clara is snatched away by a rambunctious young boy, the games and tethers she is destined to leave behind. Finally, Creepy Uncle D. produces the man of her dreams, a Nutcracker, we'll call him Woody. Clara is immediately in love, and begins dancing with her new prince prize. Naturally, she wants to bring him to her bed, unsure of why she wants to snuggle up to the hard, wooden figure, but feeling compelled to do so anyway.
Uncle Creepy D has a knowing smile as he watches her twist and writhe on the stage, and we almost see him imbue his very person into the doll with which she cavorts.
Soon, all of the children grow tired. Clara tries to bring her new boy toy to bed with her, but her mother, unwilling to see her young daughter grow up, intervenes.
Before he leaves, Creepy Uncle D. covers the Nutcracker with his cloak, awaiting the time when he can come to Clara as a full-grown man.
Meanwhile, rats infest the darkened room, gnawing on the couch where Clara lay, eating away at her self-control. The clock strikes and we see Creepy Uncle in the face of the clock, indicating it's "time". He sprinkles dust on the sleeping Clara and she awakens to giant rats, chasing and terrorizing her. She is in a flimsy, sheer nightgown displaying her young, yet womanly body.
As she falls onto the fainting couch, her dreams transport her to a land where giant rats fight toy soldiers. Ah, but one soldier seems familiar. One soldier has the package of a freaking elephant....Her Prince, the Nutcracker, is there to defend her!
Soon he takes Clara on a whirlwind tour of the Sugar Plum Fairy's kingdom, enticing her with sweets. In what can only be described as a strange threesome, Clara, the Sugar Plum Fairy and the Prince wallow in the caliente, fiery dancers of Spain, the sensual, seduction of the Arabian dancers, the aerobatics of the Chinese and finally, the masculine, dominant Russian dance.
Dolls no longer apply to Clara's world, as Madame Gigogne lifts her skirts and shows Clara where dollies really come from and what she must expect as a woman.
Finally, Woody woos her with Dance of the Flower Petals, as she symbolically moves from childhood fancy with sweets and candy, to womanly desires of deep florals, stamens and pistons. They sit, side by side as the Sugar Plum Fairy performs the pas de deux with her cavalier, the dance representing the coupling of two people in perfect harmony. The Nutcracker prince simply can't decide with whom he should dance, so he goes between Clara and the Sugar Plum Fairy, leaving one woman alone to watch as he lifts and spins the other...(more like a pas de trois if you ask me)
The finale displays all of the players as they converge into an orgy of color, light and sound while they bombard the stage and bend in graceful bows. Clara and her Prince are consummated crowned and carted away in a gilded sled, no doubt with tin cans tied to the bumper.
Clara wakes from her dream....satisfied.
***
As far as metaphors go, it's pretty clear. Clara wakes up and her Dream Boat Prince is actually just a little man with a big mouth.
*sigh*
The story of every woman at some point in her life.
Chew on THAT a spell.
Chowder
0 comments:
Post a Comment