Apparently the word “nutcracker” has more than one meaning

The alternative to [cultural] appropriation is a world where white European people make art about white European people with only white European references in it. – Gabrielle Zevin

I wrestled with this topic a bit before putting virtual pen to paper because even I realize we’re scant millimeters from setting up the kind of progressive straw man that’s far too easy to knock down. I typically leave that kind low hanging fruit reporting to the Kane County Chronicle and Daily Herald.

But the mere thought of suburban Chicago ballet, art, and theatre directors so fervently believing that only they can correctly interpret, and somehow improve upon, the works of Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky is so absurd and abhorrent that I couldn’t let it go.

The irony, of course, is by usurping the great composer’s works they’re displaying the same kind of immense hubris and me-centrism that progressives love to rail against. Can you say, “A vast hypocrisy?” I knew you could!

To figuratively and literally set the stage, The Nutcracker tells the story of Clara, a little girl who receives a nutcracker soldier doll on Christmas Eve. She falls asleep under the tree clutching the gift in her arms and dreams that the toy comes to life to battle the evil Mouse King.

After Clara helps him defeat the creature, the Nutcracker turns into a prince and leads her to the Land of Snow, where they’re greeted by dancing snowflakes. From there they meet the Sugar Plum Fairy in the Land of Sweets where they’re rewarded with Russian, Arabian, and Chinese Dances, culminating in a final pas de deux between the prince and Sugar Plum Fairy before Clara wakes up.

Anyone with two working brain cells fully comprehends the entire performance is sheer fantasy, but despite that stark unreality, those aforementioned art, ballet, and theatre directors feel a dire need to abridge the masterpiece by removing all of the “offending references”

“Offending references?” Have I said truth is far stranger than fict….oh yeah! At least 357 times this year alone. Still, you might want to gird your loins before we move forward.

Orland Park’s Ballet 5:8’s impending version of the classic, “Beyond the Nutcracker,” contains no Clara, no nutcracker, no Russia, and no fun. Instead, we have Emma, a little girl who’s growing up in the “shadow of World War II” with a Chicago backdrop, though the word “America” is never mentioned in the proceedings because that would be offensive.

Really? They had to change the little girl’s name? What’s wrong with Clara? Have white supremacists co-opted that, too? How many times have I said, “You can’t make this stuff u…oh yeah! At least 428 times this year alone.

Yes! Because it’s every little girl’s before Christmas dream to watch a fantasy that’s so depressing it destroys their Christmas spirit to the point where three Dickensian ghosts couldn’t revive it.

To be fair, this absurd 5:8 interpretation is supposed to be all about hope, but why can’t we let children lose themselves in fantasy for fantasy’s sake during a holiday season that’s all about fantasy? It would seem that, like their Puritan forebearers, progressives ardently believe any form of fun is a mortal sin as long as someone somewhere misused a personal pronoun that day.

Not to be outdone, the artistic director of the Salt Creek Ballet in Westmont said they “altered” the Chinese Dance segment explaining, “The choreography was changed to be more respectful to the culture.”

Ah yes! That dreaded “cultural appropriation” rears its ugly head one more time. We can’t have that kind of thing in the ballet world where dancers are regularly subjected to abusive teachers resulting in depression, life-altering chronic injuries, eating disorders, and obsessive-compulsive behavior.

What really frosts my cookies about that is, from movies to music to political stupidity to fast food to skateboards and right on down to blue jeans, ours is the most “appropriated” culture on this vast third rock from the Sun. Every last kid on this planet want to be an American, so if another idiot college student, who can barely string two sentences together on a final exam, dares to use that two-word tripe in my presence, my friend Vicki White is gonna have to come up with some serious bail money.

The irony there of course is, per Ms. Zevin’s opening quote, if we avoid all “cultural appropriation” then we’re right back to all-white performances on all-white topics which with all-white references which will get us into even more trouble with those overly sanctimonious and self-serving progressive social warriors. Isn’t that kind of imitation the sincerest form of flattery?

This is exactly the kind of insanity that inevitably occurs when theaters and dance companies insist on hiring equity and inclusion coordinators. Why? Because an equity and inclusion coordinator who can’t come up with all manner of insidious bigotry, cultural appropriation, and minority microaggressions will soon be an unemployed equity and inclusion coordinator.

I’ll say it again. The arrogance it must take for a minor dance company director to reinterpret and whitewash a once-in-a-century masterpiece is almost too much to bear. Wouldn’t it also behoove us to note that the Nutcracker was first performed in Moscow in 1892, and to apply a stilted 2022 morality to a 130-year-old Russian ballet is the height of vanity and a smug self-absorption.

Not only that, but considering how Churchill once referred to Russia as “a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma,” The Nutcracker offers a rare glimpse into the Russian soul at a time when that country was struggling to enter the modern era. When taken in light of that historical perspective the ballet becomes even more fascinating.

But no, we’d rather take offense at a Chinese Dance that was the best the composer could do at the time.

All this classic Evanston liberal can say is, God! Progressives suck!