While Tchaikovsky waited in the wings, and I let my mind wander, the show opened with special guest emcee Kurtis Blow doing a bit of an opening act, as if we were in Las Vegas.
Then Marissa Licata walked out, violin in hand, and got things going in a direction more to my tastes, the first act culminating, as stated in the program, when the “Nutcracker, aided by a magic pair of sneakers, defeats the Mouse King.” As Mars Blackmon told us in 1989, as if he were watching the dancing on the stage, “it’s gotta be the shoes.”
The beginning of the second act goes back in time to a nightclub, in 1984, using cool video effects that convinced me that time travel, via a very fast subway train, apparently is possible.
That setting provided the opportunity for the cast to show off their acrobatic dance skills, one-by-one, as if they were competing in an Olympics gymnastic floor exercise. I awarded each and every one of them a ten. Simone Biles would have been hard-pressed to keep up with this crew.
There were lots of moves that should be physically impossible, demonstrating remarkable strength and flexibility, all to the beat of the music, but I was most intrigued by Jessie Smith’s ability to move six or seven body parts simultaneously in different directions.