DANCE REVIEW : THEATRE BALLET PRESENTS ‘NUTCRACKER’

When Theatre Ballet of San Francisco first brought its “Nutcracker” to Southern California in the mid-’70s, Merriem Lanova’s three-act staging boasted fading but still elegant scenery (by Dik Rose), tolerably refined orchestral playing (by members of the Pasadena Symphony) and performances that, however uneven, usually remained well above the dancing-school level. Gone are the days.

On Saturday afternoon, the company danced its “Nutcracker” in Pasadena Civic Auditorium to taped music so overamplified that you could feel the score vibrating up through the seats and even along the front balcony railing.

The uncredited scenery lacked a unifying sense of style and though Wendy Kolte’s costumes proved attractive, their effectiveness often vanished in the dim, tinted light.

Traditional in dramatic approach but fussy or unmusical in details, this “Nutcracker” featured intricate, large-scale choreography that often couldn’t be cleanly executed at the excessively rapid tempos on the tape. The variable soloists and 18-member corps worked hard, but this clearly was no Christmas party for them .

The best and worst of the dancing came in the major classical challenges, with Jana Chew displaying fine balances and smoothness of articulation as the Snow Queen and Frederika Weil seeming to float on pointe as an extraordinarily supple Sugar Plum Fairy--but with Louis Bunt and David Stratton effortful and sometimes clumsy as the resident cavaliers.

Best of the males: Rockne Boger as both high-velocity licorice whip (Russian Dance) and suave petal-partner (Waltz of the Flowers). Boger also played the Mouse King, which used to be quite a dance role in this production but, like much of the first act, is now overloaded with gratuitous comic mime.