Andie and I headed out tonight to see an urban reinterpretation of The Nutcracker at the Abrons Arts Center on Grand Street at Pitt (a.k.a. Avenue C). It’s so far east it’s just about under the Williamsburg Bridge and neither Andie nor I felt we’d been in a section of Manhattan less Manhattan-like. It was as if we were in New Jersey or deep in Queens or somewhere with all the industrial decay, oddly inactive housing projects, shuttered storefronts and lack of pedestrians, all of which you may see in the city during odd hours, but this was around 7:00 on a Saturday night. We thought we’d find someplace quaint to eat dinner; we found nothing and bought Pringles and bottled drinks from a bodega.
The play was not bad. There was a mix of dance students with professionals, whose every leg, arm and back muscle was clearly defined, and who can contort their bodies with ease into the most unnatural yet graceful positions. The “urban reinterpretation” part of it was half-assed. Occasionally backbeats would funk up into the recorded Tchaikovsky or the cast would start clapping its hands rhythmically as someone all the sudden started breakdancing. Other than that it was a basic interpretation, from what I can remember of the original, although with added jubilance from the young kids in the cast.