David and I went to Wimbledon this week to see Matt Bourne’s, The Nutcracker (well we booked it at Christmas).
The tale opens in Dr Dross’s Academy for Waifs and Strays on Christmas Eve, a horrid grey orphanage that pays lip service to the festive season. We meet our heroine and Dr Dross’s awful children. Then the Nutcracker appears and we’re transported to a frozen lake for skating and snow where our heroine loses her love. She follows him to Sweetieland and his marriage to her rival and then … ah well, you’ll have to see it to find out what happens next.
After the grey of the orphanage and the white of the frozen lake, the fabulous colours of Sweetieland are a psychedelic lure to the eyes and the palette.
In Sweetieland, we meet a slightly different cast of characters than we might have been led to expect by the version that this one lampoons. Mother Ginger has been remastered into a hefty licorice security guard who defends an obscene, glitter-lipped, uvula-revealing open mouth that is the backdrop. The sparkling orifice is the point of entry for all the high-end candy, so long as it has a ticket to ride. Clara, being at the lowest end of the pecking order, has no such ticket. She spends the entire divertissement segment attempting to dissemble her way in, by gamely dancing along with the equivalents of Spanish, Marzipan and an over-the-top solo Arabian, where the mustachioed dancer is costumed in a smoking jacket and an ascot, with a whip of meringue topped by a cherry for a coiffure. Chinese is inexplicably retred as a Marshmallow number, and to the music for Russian, we are treated to a raucous faux macho Motorcycle gang of Gobstoppers, whose tripak jumps simulate sex and cycling.
The leads might be twirling away up front but the others are always up to something in the background so you never know where to look. I loved the two blond cupids (Im sure I have seen these two on the dance floor at Mardi Gras) in their glasses and stripey pyjamas and also Mr Nickerbockerglory with his hair of cream topped by a cherry - he was also very purvy trying to seduce our heroine and licking everything and everyone in sight. He was even in character when he came out for his bow at the end, which was a nice touch.
I couldn’t help smiling and grinning throughout the performance, eyes agawp and fingers twirling my beard into dreadlocks. I *want* a battenburg jacket. And cake.
I loved it. It was sumptuous, a feast for the senses and a wonderful way to celebrate the Christmas season.
Digg it: source : at Gay mens blog, beauty, art, and freedom of gay expression.
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