Theatre Orchard’s version of The Nutcracker is an ambitious and highly imaginative piece of pop-up theatre. Inspired by the musique concrete movement, Jez Butler has cleverly adapted Tchaikovsky’s familiar music for a ‘kitchen orchestra’ using household objects such as elastic bands, bottles and a draining rack. The sounds he has created are far easier on the ear than might be anticipated, and this technique seems entirely appropriate for a story about how things familiar and domestic undergo a fantastical transformation. Butler has treated the original score very freely, throwing in a chunk of the 1812 Overture for good measure during the battle with the mice. Sarah Warren’s striking set design is dominated by a huge matchbox, creating a dream-like distortion of scale, while a smiling moon-faced clock hangs in the night sky, suggesting that this is a story that will play tricks with time, too.
Using a cast of four, director and writer Toby Hulse has gone back to E.T.A. Hoffman’s original tale and has included material omitted in the Tchaikovsky ballet, such as the story of Princess Pirlipat and the Mouse Queen. Hannah Lee is Clara, the little girl who is so fond of the wooden nutcracker fashioned in the shape of a soldier. I last saw her as an intense and passionate Thomasina in Arcadia at the Tobacco Factory, and she brings a similar sense of innocence and earnest youthful romanticism to this role. Jimmy Whiteaker plays her younger brother, and with a swift change of hat and wig he is also Drosselmeyer, the mysterious magician-like clock-mender. Both actors skillfully employ a combination of mime and dialogue to tell the story, and the audience is encouraged to participate too – at one point a feather duster is applied to the front row.
Of course, there is also dance – it wouldn’t be The Nutcracker without it. Choreographed by Sara Matthews and Christopher Marney and with some additional choreography from Hannah Lee, there are some splendid dance sequences, and there are two classically trained dancers, too: Andrei Teodor Iliescu from Romania and Brianna Hickes from Canada. Iliescu plays the handsome hero with a knowing twinkle in his eye, and in the first act Hickes is wonderfully convincing as a mechanical doll. Pop-up shows cannot match the size and spectacle offered by more conventional (and more expensive!) theatre venues, but this production has an intimacy and immediacy which bigger productions may lack. Nowhere is this better illustrated than in the second half when the two dancers perform the famous pas de deux. There is a great deal of comedy in this show, but this is a moment of sheer beauty. I would have liked more ‘pure’ ballet sequences like this, but I imagine that the relatively confined space would make this difficult.
The Theatre at the Bay makes great use of the old Tropicana lido, though facilities are inevitably rather basic, and for this show it’s a shame that the seating is not raked – I’d recommend sitting as near to the front as possible. But Nutshell Nutcracker offers an excellent one and a half hour’s Christmas entertainment – an ‘extraordinary night of wishes and dreams’. Recommended. ★★★★☆ Mike Whitton 16th December 2015
