This is Drama Masks, a Bay Area performing arts column (full of mad ramblings, Oxford commas, and “theatre” with an “r-e”) from a born San Franciscan and longtime theatre artist in an N95 mask. I talk venue safety and dramatic substance, or the lack thereof.
It was really down to the very last minute, wasn’t it? Let’s be honest, the 2024 off-season made for a very rough year for the SF Ballet: a lawsuit over injuries; a major ransomware hack; and their annual season-opening Christmas show was in danger of not happening because the company was still negotiating with the union. When I personally reached out to the Ballet on opening week to see if my reservation was still good, they said that it was… until they might have to say otherwise.
That was two days before opening. With one day to go, the company and the union came to (tentative) terms. I entered the press room on opening night with company reps admitting not even they knew if they’d have an opening to celebrate. Hell, the only other classical SF institution with a more publicized kerfuffle this year was the also-financially-strapped company and house across the street.
Nevertheless, me and my fellow patrons were happy to show up for the SF Ballet’s annual production of Helgi Tomasson’s take on George Balanchine’s interpretation of Tchaikovsky’s The Nutcracker (through December 29 at the War Memorial Opera House, SF). After the year we—both patrons and the Ballet—have all had, we needed this annual reprieve to help us through this season.
I spent the pre-show ping-ponging back and forth between my aisle seats (always two, for COVID safety), the press room (which has free eats), and the open air of the outdoors (where I could safely consume said eats without inhaling everyone else mouth-breathing). There were all the usual accoutrements and costumed characters walking the lobby for photo ops. There was new and discounted merch for sale on every level of the Opera House. There was every familiar component that brings us back to this show year after.
Well, almost.
One thing that was missing was a full house. By my own count, the opening night audience seemed to only be about 70-80% capacity. Had this been a mid-run performance, that wouldn’t have surprised me, but this was opening night. Even when the Ballet slowly began welcoming back audiences in 2021 (with their wonderfully-strong COVID safety measures), they chose to forego reduced capacity attendance.
My guess is that, like me, most audience members were unsure as to whether the opening would actually happen, so some of them didn’t even both to make reservations. In fact, given what I overheard, I wouldn’t be surprised if some—even among this affluent crowd—chose to skip opening night out of solidarity with Ballet union members.
Of course, there’s always the possibility of that “C-word” that no one wants to talk about but is the reason I showed up in my Flo-Mask. Just sayin’.
You’ll forgive me for having mentioned very little about the show proper. Even the most seasoned arts critic is often at a loss in describing The Nutcracker when it doesn’t deviate from its traditional interpretation. Though the setting’s been moved to turn-of-the-century SF, the story is intentionally thin. Eccentric Uncle Drosselmeyer (Pascal Molat) gifts a wooden nutcracker to his niece Clara (Mitsuki Kobayashi Denman) for Christmas. The girl loves the little wooden man, falling asleep with it in her arms.
She then dreams—or Drosselmeyer casts a spell, it’s left ambiguous—that she’s been shrunk down to the size of the Nutcracker, now a gallant soldier-prince (Wei Wang) whom Clara helps defeat the evil Mouse King (Nathaniel Remez). In celebration, the Prince and an aged-up Clara (Wona Park) sit in company of the Snow Queen and King (Jasmine Jimison and Fernando Carratalá Coloma, respectively), who are being entertained by international performers.
That’s it. The majority of what you’ve just read happens in the first quarter of the ballet. I often describe it to people by saying “imagine reading Peter Pan, but Peter dispatches Hook in the first twelve pages, so the rest of the story was about Wendy being entertained by a floor show from the Lost Boys, the mermaids, and Tiger Lily’s tribe.” The show is about 80% narrative filler.
But it’s delicious filler. If I’m not mistaken, this may be the first time, at least for the SF Ballet, in which both the Nutcracker Prince and Clara (both versions) were all played by Asian performers. This was refreshing, and brought to mind the nascent upwardly mobile status of Asian immigrant families, possibly like Clara’s, at the time, matched, of course, by terrible anti-Asian backlash. Wang and Park illuminate every powerful note of Tchaikovsky’s centra pas de deux; the music is skillfully conducted by Martin West.
Nevertheless, the show is once again stolen by the Snow Queen. After last year’s fantastic final turn by the now-retired Yuan Yuan Tan, rising SFB talent Jasmine Jimison proves herself more than up for the challenge, pirouetting with grace even as abundance of faux snow nearly made the stage invisible. Equally matching her is SFB star prima Sasha de Sola, who does nothing less than take ownership of her time as the Sugar Plum Fairy. Even through an already-entertaining show, the two held the reduced audience’s rapt attention with every step.
The Opera House’s open design and powerful HVAC continue to work wonders for those of us who were masked. Over the course of the two-hour-plus show, CO² readings on my Aranet4 never went any higher than 664ppm, dropping to only 565ppm during the “Pas de Deux,” and finishing at 583ppm during the final bow.
Yet, I find myself thinking about a few of the conversations I heard in the lobby and the press room. At a few spots, the conversation would turn to the man (now identified as Luigi Mangione) who’d killed the CEO of UnitedHealth. People tried not seem too happy about the act itself, but they could barely hold back their disdain for the insurance industry. I wound up overhearing numerous stories about how patrons felt powerless as their finances were bled dry by the Aetnas and BlueCrosses of the country as those patrons, or their loved ones, hoped they wouldn’t die from whatever ailment had taken them.
Of the stories I overheard, more than one contained some variation of the ill will the person wished upon the insurance agents who’d put them in that position. And remember: Most of these folks are SF’s 1%, likely owning no shortage of the insurance I’ve never had. Even amongst them, it’s no wonder Mangione is considered a hero.
That’s the lesson I took away from opening night of The Nutcracker: they saw themselves as the eponymous lead and/or Clara, going up against the evil mice who want to eat them alive. The unions of SF Symphony and SF Ballet both felt it. Everyone burned by insurance companies felt it. The beautifully loud Westin Hotel workers—still protesting several blocks away—definitely feel it. Despite all the flowing bubbly, shiny baubles, and expensive tchotchkes, there was something in the air that made it feel as if this performance belonged to the people, whether those presenting knew it or not.
I doubt many of the attending kids knew it either. That’s fine. If they got nothing out of it but a fun evening of fairies and Russian kick-dancers, that’s great. Theatre (especially SF theatre) has taken some major hits this year, so I always take comfort in the idea that kids in the audience will leave a show with a new love of stagecraft. That’s exactly what the unionized dancers were fighting for in the days leading up to opening. Art shouldn’t have to be a job, but when it is, we shouldn’t have to worry about our next meal.
The opening audience may not have been full, but the experience was once again fulfilling.
THE NUTCRACKER runs through December 29 at the War Memorial Opera House, SF. Tickets and further info here.
