DANCE REVIEW : ‘Nutcracker’ Effort Is Modest to a Fault

Ballet Pacifica’s production of the “Nutcracker” displayed modest scope and accomplishment Tuesday at the beginning of a five-day run at the Moulton Theatre in Laguna Beach.

Storyteller Douglas Reeve introduced the work with a synopsis for children that had the virtue of not talking down to them. Tania Barton and Wally Huntoon provided handsome, simple sets. Lila Zali, founder of the company, created decorous costumes. The dancing was to taped music.

With choreography by Zali and staging by artistic director Molly Lynch and Kitty Sue Barnett, the production tells the story simply and directly. There is no newfangled recasting of Drosselmeyer as an ominous Freudian presence or a persistent stage manager.

On the other hand, Drosselmeyer, as portrayed by Charles Johnston, was neither menacing nor mysterious but blandly avuncular. In this production, he even disappears at the end of the party scene, never to be seen again, not even--as is traditional--above the clock when it strikes midnight.

The transformation scene begins with promise--the Christmas tree lights flickering to the appropriate musical cues, the grandfather clock scudding across the stage, a row of children rising to attention as toy soldiers. One could almost forgive that here it seems to take forever for the tree to start growing, and then rise only to a modest height.

Then the logic gets weak. The grown-up mice easily defeat all the toy soldiers, leaving Clara (Sara Shisler) alone and surrounded by figures that tower over--but also ignore--her, while the Mouse King (Charles Glidden) and the Nutcracker (Duffy Lucas) fight one another.

The Snow Scene and Act II showed the company to range widely in technical accomplishment. A common tendency, however, was for soloists to end phrases with whammo flourishes, no matter how they had danced.

But Janine Paulsen was a warm Sugar Plum Fairy and was partnered securely by Lee Wigand as the Nutcracker Prince.

In the Waltz of the Flowers, Emma Sutherland as the Dewdrop Fairy and David Cesler as her Cavalier executed a series of virtuosic fish dives that in a choreographic misjudgment all but obliterated the Grand Pas de Deux as the climax of the ballet.

“Nutcracker” will continue with alternating casts through Saturday.

Ballet Pacifica dances the “Nutcracker” through Saturday at the Moulton Theatre, 606 Laguna Canyon Road, Laguna Beach. Show times today: 3:30 and 7:30 p.m. Tickets: $10 to $12. Information: (714) 642-9275.