THE NUTCRACKER AND THE MOUSE KING. To 21 February.

Tour

THE NUTCRACKER AND THE MOUSE KING
by Jane Buckler from the story by ETA Hoffmann

Oxfordshire Touring Theatre Company Tour to 21 February 2004
Runs 2hr One interval
Review: Timothy Ramsden 10 December at Waddesdon Village Hall

Complex piece, striking in its visual staging but running aground in some narrative places.This is a dark often, literally dark story, set against wartime poverty. Hope is offset by death and bereavement. Multi-levelled, it spins a mix of dreams, stories and realities till each becomes equally real. There's plenty of ambition, though room for greater clarity.

The performances only partly help. Wendy Crowley-Dynan charts Marie's hopes, fears and dreams. She's pivotal to the plot, the person through whom tensions and questionings are most thoroughly focused. Both as a discontented girl saddled with an unsympathetic brother, and as the person who faces the Mouse King's persecution, this Marie is a firm centre to the production.

Around her, much is adequate. Sally Armstrong's drawn the short straw, having the least developed characters. She pinpoints interest especially in the children's mother: willing herself to survive amid her impoverishment, trying to make sense of Marie's seemingly fevered dream-experiences, then finally needing to respond to the peremptorily delivered news of her husband's fate.

The male characters are less successful. Zoot Lynam at least makes sense if not too much more - of Marie's brother and the giant sword-wielding Mouse, vengeful for the Nutcracker's murder of his Queen. (the script hints at an identification of his doubled roles, though the point's not developed).

But director Brendan Murray shouldn't have let Drosselmeier appear in such a wildly different register, Guignol far too Grand for this scale of theatre or for his role in the action. Drosselmeier is a trusted friend of the family; this swirling, hectoringly sinister melodrama madman even in his most public moments - would be as acceptable as Count Dracula in full-flow at a church-hall tea party.

Nor does his final note of sympathy fit the character we've seen, especially with such inflexible voicing of the dialogue. Not that Jane Buckler's script helps much either in narrative clarity or tonal subtlety. Sometimes flat, sometimes bombastic sometimes, in truth, purposeful the spoken word contributes less than Leslie Travers' flexibly-used set or, especially, Paul Batten's moodily subdued lighting palette, which breaks only briefly into the clear light of day.

Mama/Clara/Queen: Sally Armstrong
Marie: Wendy Crowley-Dynan
Drosselmeier/Nutcracker/Young Man: Paul Huntley-Thomas
Fritz/Mouse King: Zoot Lynam

Director: Brendan Murray
Designer: Leslie Travers
Lighting/Sound: Paul Batten
Movement: Lawrence Evans
Puppet director: Roman Stefanski
Fight director: David Broughton-Davies

2003-12-10 23:43:16