By BRUCE DENNILL
Cape Ballet Africa: The Nutcracker / Artistic Director: Debbie Turner / Teatro, Montecasino, Fourways
One of the top three or four best-known ballets in the classical canon, The Nutcracker is, if not quite, to steal the sports commentary phrase, “a game of two halves,” certainly a piece where the action and excitement picks up as the production progresses. So it is here, where a visually fairly lean opening sequence progresses into a Christmas party, more suggesting what is to come than physically delivering it until the toymaker Drosselmeyer’s (Marcel Meyer) toys perform individual solos with jerky, staccato movements cleverly replicating the way articulated toy joints move (Gabriel Ravenscroft and Maryana Pobuta excel here).
The arrival of and battle with the Rat King and his army raises the stakes, thanks in considerable part to brilliant costumes designed – in a scenario where life imitates art – by Meyer and stark, dramatic lighting by Wilhelm Disbergen.
In Act II, when the sleeping Clara (Maseroka Mothiba) has been taken to the Kingdom of Sweets on the Snow Queen’s (Mia Coomber) magical sleigh, the colours are ramped up and choreographer Maina Gielgud’s choreography is more fully realised and showcased in the various dances featuring characters representing the different kingdoms. Highlights include the brief but technically difficult solo from Paige McElligott (as Tea) and the superb pas de trois of Maryana Pobuta, Julia O’Keeffe and Erin Padoa as Marzipan – the best moment of the production to that point – with the former two of that trio shining again as the leads in the Waltz of the Flowers. Brazilian guest artist Arthur Wille’s split leaps, when his Nutcracker Prince joins the Candy Cane duo of Gabriel Ravenscroft and Joshua Williams, are also impressively clean, defined and muscular.
As the Sugar Plum Fairy and Sugar Plum Prince respectively, Leané Theunissen and Ukrainian guest artist Denys Cherevychko display extraordinary skill, precision and form befitting their status as leads, while also seeming to really enjoy partnering each other and dancing their roles, with wide smiles and full commitment to their jumps, lifts and other testing choreographic elements.
Meyer, as Drosselmeyer, is fantastic throughout, the production’s constant centre, drawing the eye with his imposing stage presence and sumptuous cloak and then holding attention with wonderfully engaging facial expressions as well as meaningful, dramatic movements of his hands and head. If this story was set in the present, Drosselmeyer would probably be working as an in-demand event planner, booking the entertainment and making sure everyone is in and out on time. In this context, he is a weaver of multi-faceted fairytales, guided by and drenched in Tchaikovsky’s ageless score – beautiful throughout and occasionally luminous as the best-known passages connect with the collective audience consciousness.