On the Upper East Side, lived Marie and mother Flo.
With loads of her Barbies, nothing meant more,
to Marie who'd spend hours behind the closed door.
But the Eve is upon us. It's Nineteen Sixty Three!
Marie's run away but doesn't get far,
while crossing the street she's bumped by a car.
Dreams dark and scary race through Marie's mind,
But Barbie is coming, Ken's not far behind!"
The delightfully bizarro Nutcracker (not so) Suite is described thusly. While I admittedly have never seen the original Nutcracker ballet (disclaimer: I'm a theater geek who doesn't know much about dance), the plot sounds fairly similar - after a Christmas Eve party, a young girl dreams of strange and enchanting things. But this Nutcracker, originally created by Myron Johnson for his company Ballet of the Dolls and presented this year by James Sewell Ballet, is set in late '60s NYC. The young girl in question is the neglected only daughter of a boozy mother, and the dolls she dreams about are her beloved Barbie dolls. For any little girl (or boy) who ever dreamed her (or his) Barbies to life, this Nutcracker is a bewitching delight.
