Is it Too Late to Rewrite The Nutcracker?
I’m a fan of a good story in whatever medium it appears,
book, movie, song, video game, you name it, or in this instance ballet. Popular
this time of year, of course is The Nutcracker. I’ve seen a few productions over
the years and while I will concede that each performance inherently has its own
variances and nuances, in each version I’ve seen, I find the story of The
Nutcracker falls a little short.
Lets take a step back and ask the question, what makes a
story interesting? To me the simplest answer is conflict. Conflict between
characters or between a character and other forces is what almost every story
uses to get us listeners, viewers, or observer to invest our time to find out
what happens. What makes a story good?
If we observers feel our time was well spent investing in a story, then to us
personally, the story is good. Thus, to me, a good story must have compelling
conflict with the exploration of the conflict, be it leading to a resolution or
not, guiding us through the story’s entirety.
In general terms, every element of a work should serve the
story. Big budget special effects in
movies, soliloquies in plays, songs in musicals, or flashback chapters in a
novel, all of these can be exceptional devices so long as they serve the story,
if not, they and the story fail. In a ballet, dancing is of course the primary
element and dancing is used to tell the story. Therefore, by my standards, all
dancing in a ballet should serve the story.
Now returning to The Nutcracker, the ballet has a definite
story, the conflict of which lies between the mice, led by the Mouse-King and the
soldiers who fight them, led by the Nutcracker.
This conflict might be as good as any for a story, but my issue is that
this conflict resolves essentially half way through.
A story can have many conflicts but to me no further
conflict arises resulting in the entire second half of the piece being without
conflict and virtual without story. The dancing no longer serves the story but
instead becomes a simple collage of vignettes, each with no apparent story or
conflict of their own, and no matter how well performed, and how ornately
decorated, still fall short of continuing to be compelling.
That said, I believe altering the story to maintain
conflict, and thereby interest for the entirety could be relatively simple.
Just bring back the Mouse-King for one more battle right before the conclusion.
Imagine, the story as is, but when the Mouse-King was defeated he instead escapes
and threatens to return. Through each vignette of various food or drink themed dances,
the threat of the Mouse-King’s return is ever-present…conflict.
After the crowning of Clara (or whatever the girls name is
in a particular version) and the Prince (Nutcracker) as rulers of the Land of
Sweets, the Mouse-King does returns and threatens everyone. The Nutcracker must
once again take up arms and then and only then defeat the Mouse-King for good.
With this resolution to the conflict, now only a short amount of story is spent
celebrating the defeat and awaking from the dream (if that is the
interpretation of your given version.) So again I ask, is it too late to
rewrite The Nutcracker?
* It is difficult to account for all interpretation of this piece,
across so many years and around the world. Given the multitude of unique
versions, it is possible that a similar variation to what I propose has been
tried. If so, and if available to watch or at least read a review of, please
point me in its direction. I would surely enjoy it.
Comments
Revisit the Chilling - Angel Heart
Much like my culinary appetite, I
find my appetite for stories sizable, but more noteworthy, to be heavily
influenced by seasonal hallmarks. Just
as the 10th month of the year brings an insatiable taste for
anything with a particular orange gourd as an ingredient, so to does October fortify
my craving for creepy, sinister, and macabre tales. Naturally, it culminates on
the 31st, before turning to the heartwarming, playful, and jolly stories
that draw my fancy through the remaining holidays of the year.
With Halloween just days away, many
dark, enticing tales cross my mind, but one that emerges as not only scary, but
interesting to ponder is the film Angel Heart (1987). * Though I’ve seen
it multiple times, and years ago, it still stands as a complex story with
themes and details worth revisiting and contemplating from time to time.
It stars a barely recognizable
Mickey Rourke, to those familiar with the actor today, alongside Robert De Niro
and Lisa Bonet. Rourke portrays Harry Angel. On the surface he’s an easily
identifiable, hardboiled private detective – struggling to pay his bills,
chasing beautiful women, and bedding a few in order to pursue his latest
investigation. But that’s only where the
character begins. The missing person case that falls into Angel’s lap takes
him, and us, on a dangerous path of secrets, corruption, and murder. Besides
putting Angel’s own life in jeopardy, the story leads to darker territory
including voodoo, deathly fortune telling, and devil worship.
This alone is enough to distinguish
the story from a Sam Spade or Philip Marlowe case, and to push this film into
the October-appropriate realm of Horror, but this is only the surface appeal of
the film. Angel Heart goes further, and doubles the detective’s investigation,
with all its peril, as also a voyage of self-discovery. As Harry Angel must go to dark and sinister
places, so to must he uncover dark and sinister truths about himself.
This elevates the story from
entertaining to contemplative, and is the reason this film can not only give
you a welcome Halloween chill, but also leave those of you who love a good
story as much as I do, ruminating on its themes and psychological consequences
for years to come - revisiting this meaty morsel whenever your appetite for the
menacing and direful surfaces.
* Note this film was based on William Hjortsberg’s novel Falling Angel (1978). My familiarity lies
with the film and my discussion is limited to it, though I’m sure the novel
shares most of the film’s admirable qualities, as well as possesses many of its
own. Perhaps appropriate for a future post...
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