Christmas Countdown: The Nutcracker

Peeper and I went to see the Nutcracker this afternoon. We enjoyed it, but there were some odd directorial choices. Primarily the fact that the Nutcracker never transformed into a human prince, which I kind of thought was a major plot point.

Seriously, have you ever seen a performance of Nutcracker in which he stays in Nutcracker form (actual dancing man, but with the giant head Nutcracker mask) for the entire show?

Furthermore, it occurs to me that after Clara whacked the Mouse King (Oh, wait, no, the Rat Queen. WTF?) the Nutcracker stayed down, so it's not even clear that she's saved his life. Even his wooden Nutcracker life.

I was waiting to see how they were going to sneak the mask off his head and off stage (I was expecting Drosselmeyer and his cape to be involved, that's how he got life-sized) then the lights went down and he (the dancer, out of character) hopped up and left the stage.

Bizarre.

But Peeper still enjoyed it, which is really all that matters.

I was not thrilled about how far away we had to park, but she didn't seem to mind. Notice that she's wearing ballet flats and tights, which are now covered in snow.