If you had been to inform the common particular person on the road that your favourite stage model of “The Nutcracker” featured neither ballet nor the enduring Tchaikovsky rating, they’d assume you had been an unbearable hipster at finest — and maybe completely deranged at worst. But such an individual would clearly have missed the heartfelt marvel that’s The House Theatre of Chicago’s 10th anniversary manufacturing of “The Nutcracker,” based mostly on E.T.A. Hoffmann’s darkish and magical story. So inform them: Go see it. You’ll thank me later.
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Whereas most vacation leisure opts for being mild and disposable, this model of “The Nutcracker” heads in the other way. As one character places it, the gobs of colourful, twinkling lights that embody the vacation season serve to brighten up what would in any other case be the darkest time of yr, and “The Nutcracker” is desirous about what lurks inside that darkness. Spoiler: it’s extra than simply rats (but in addition: a lot of rats). The battle to avoid wasting Christmas is a standard theme in vacation tales, however hardly ever does it really feel so genuinely imperiled because it does right here. What’s thwarting it? Grief.
Created by House Theatre firm members Jake Minton, Phillip Klapperich, Kevin O’Donnell and Tommy Rapley (who additionally directs and choreographs), “The Nutcracker” opens with a Christmas get together foiled, as younger Clara (a pleasant Amaris Sanchez) and her dad and mom be taught that her brother, Fritz (Dwayne Everett), will not be coming house for Christmas. In his place is a solemn man in military threads bearing a triangle-folded flag. The following yr, there isn’t a get together and barely any signal of Christmas in Clara’s house. At least not till her mischievous great-aunt Drosselmeyer (Amanda de la Guardia) arrives.
The toys all put together to battle the Rat King and recuperate their vacation spirit within the House Theatre of Chicago’s 2019 manufacturing of “The Nutcracker.” Pictured are: Dwayne Everett as Fritz (Marine), Rachel Shapiro as Phoebe the Doll, Colin Morgan as Hugo the Robot, Johnny Arena as Marcel the Sock Monkey, and Amaris Sanchez as Clara (entrance). | Michael BrosilowMichael Brosilow
Drosselmeyer provides Clara a nutcracker that’s carved to look precisely like her brother. That night time, Nutcracker Fritz involves life — as do the remainder of Clara’s toys: Phoebe the doll (Rachel Shapiro), Hugo the robotic (Colin Morgan), and Marcel the … sock monkey (Johnny Arena). Together the fearsome fivesome got down to convey Christmas again by making cookies, chopping down a fir tree, and battling the nasty swarm of rats (led by a legit terrifying Rat King) that search to snuff Christmas out as soon as and for all. Meanwhile, their mission additionally serves to get Clara and her dad and mom, Marty (Benjamin Sprunger) and David (Nicholas Bailey), to lastly settle for and transfer on from Fritz’s demise — the impact is like Pixar staging a hostile takeover of “Ordinary People”.
Clara (Amaris Sanchez) shares within the anticipation for her brother Fritz’s return house for Christmas together with her dads (Nicholas Bailey as David, and Benjamin Sprunger as Marty) and her Aunt Drosselmeyer (Amanda de la Guardia) within the House Theatre of Chicago’s 2019 manufacturing of “The Nutcracker.”Michael Brosilow
For this tenth anniversary manufacturing, The House has made some marvelously well timed updates: Clara’s dad and mom are actually a homosexual couple (each Sprunger and Bailey performed David in earlier years) whereas Drosselmeyer is now an aunt (de la Guardia has beforehand performed the mom character, Martha). All three actors are fantastic of their roles — and of their twin turns because the…