Mae West: Nut-Cracked

It takes a tough man to play a tender MAE WEST, evidently.
• • Let's tip-toe into the ballet world for a sec. The creatures in Tchaikovsky’s "Nutcracker" are virtually their own solar system, obeying their own laws of gravity and orchestrating musical mischance and comeuppance.
• • "Playing with tradition is a bold move, and one Rodney Gustafson, artistic director of State Street Ballet, is not afraid to try," writes Ellen O'Connell, dance critic for the Santa Barbara Independent.
• • She adds, "Last weekend, the company presented its annual holiday production — — a 1930s Hollywood twist on The Nutcracker. There are quite a few versions of the Christmas classic dancing through Santa Barbara this time of year, and it can be hard to keep them all straight, but State Street Ballet’s variation is unmistakable; Gustafson reinterprets the traditional story using gangster rats in zoot suits and Ethel Merman-style synchronized swimmers as snowflakes."
• • Ooooh, what's the a-MAE-zing new angle over at the Lobero Theatre in California? Several innovations, it turns out.
• • According to O'Connell, one of the highlights of State Street Ballet’s NutCracker was the replacement of the traditional Mother Ginger with Mae West. The hysterically over-the-top Sergei Domrachev played the starlet, who appeared with a swarm of children, all students from the Gustafson School. This typically gender-bending performance was a clear crowd pleaser, and Sergei Domrachev flirted with the audience in a way that would have made even Mae West blush. ... [excerpt].
— — Source: — —
• • Publication: Santa Barbara Independent
• • Byline: Ellen O'Connell
• • Published on: 20 December 2007
• • Come up and see Mae every day online: http://MaeWest.blogspot.com/
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Mae West
• • Photo: • • Mae West • • 1935 • •
NYC
Mae West.