You won’t see any Sugar Plum Fairies dancing in the Mudlark Theater production of “The Nutcracker” but it’s unlikely you’ll miss them in this action-packed innovative adaptation by Christina Lepri of the E.T.A. Hoffman short story that inspired Tchaikovsky’s ballet.
Performances will be 7 p.m. Dec. 15-17 and 3 p.m. Dec. 17-18 at 1417 Hinman Ave. in Evanston.
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“This is the third time that we have used this script,” said Mudlark Theater’s Artistic Director and show producer Andrew Biliter. “We’ve done them four years apart — 2014, 2018, and now 2022. We’re very excited to be visiting it again.”
Biliter described the Hoffman short story on which both the ballet and this play are based as strange, saying, “Christina (Lepri) did a wonderful job of bringing heart and logic to the story.” He also noted that the original story doesn’t have any of the scenes that are in the second act of the ballet.
In this two-act, 90-minute adaptation, you learn how the Nutcracker was cursed to become ugly and how the spell was reversed.
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“I was always curious about the original ‘Nutcracker’ story,” Lepri said. “When I saw the ballet as a kid, I always watched the first act and then found the second act with a lot of unanswered questions. In the book, they really go into the backstory of how the Nutcracker became the Nutcracker and why the Mouse Queen is his enemy. There’s this whole elaborate backstory that we go into in the play that I think is so fun and so interesting to dramatize.”
Lepri, who works in education, said this project also interested her because of its focus on the topic of growing up. She previously served as education director at Mudlark Theater and has been the director of education at Northlight Theatre for three years.
The play centers around Marie, a 12-year-old who has an almost magical attraction to her toys at an age where children are usually immersed in more adult interests. In this version, Marie has to deal with her older sister, who criticizes Marie’s obsession with her toys.
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Louise isn’t in the original story and was created by Lepri who said, “I love siblings in stories where there are youth characters.”
Playwright Lepri codirected the 2014 production and Biliter directed the 2018 production. Jamie Macpherson is the director this time around, working with a cast of 21 kids, ages 10-16, and four adults.
Biliter said that Macpherson’s take on the magic tricks “is really different than anything we’ve done before. She’s playing with shadows that get big and small. She’s got a fight choreography background so she did these really elaborate, wonderful vignettes in the fight between the toys and the mice. It’s controlled chaos.”
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Lepri has attended a couple of rehearsals and said, “Everything I have seen, I really love.”
Macpherson said she wanted to direct this play because of his love for the script, “It has this feeling of adventure in it that I think really speaks to young people. Also, it’s a story for all ages that it’s OK at Christmastime to lean into wishing and to hope.”
Macpherson said that she has a personal connection to “The Nutcracker” because when she first saw the show at the age of around five, she decided that she wanted to be a performer.
She reported that the battle scene Biliter spoke about is done to some of Tchaikovsky’s ‘Nutcracker’ music “but it’s an electric guitar version so things are a little more chaotic and frantic.”
The director said her favorite prop, when Marie is miniaturized, is a needle with a thread tied around it that Marie uses as a sword.
“The actress playing Marie has such a great take on it,” director Macpherson said of the role. “She is both opinionated and strong but vulnerable. She wants to protect her toys.”
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Marie is played by 13-year-old Ari Adams of Evanston, a 7th-grader at Nichols Middle School, who first performed with Mudlark when she was five years old.
Adams described Marie as “a kid who doesn’t want to grow up. She’s her own person. She doesn’t want to follow any of the rules. She uses her imagination to find the place that’s safe for her because she doesn’t feel that she can be safe in her home and in her real life. She becomes herself when she’s with the toys.”
Adams said she enjoys the role because of the fact that her character varies between being childlike when she plays with her toys “but at the same time she has the maturity of someone my age.”
Tickets for “The Nutcracker” are $18. For reservations, call 847-448-0708 or visit mudlarktheater.org/shows.
Myrna Petlicki is a freelance reporter for Pioneer Press.