Visions Of Robot-Rats

By Martha Duffy

TITLE: THE HARD NUT

CHOREOGRAPHER: MARK MORRIS

WHERE: BROOKLYN ACADEMY OF MUSIC

BOTTOM LINE: This radical reworking of The Nutcracker may be uneven, but it's always good for a laugh.

The bourgeois German household has been banished in favor of an American apartment decorated in 1960s high tacky. The Stahlbaum children get a giant Barbie doll and a spaceman at their family Christmas Eve party. The guests are dressed in the worst excesses of a quarter-century ago, and before long they are drunk and lubricious. Postmodern choreographer Mark Morris, never at a loss for a flip word or gesture, insists that his take on the Tchaikovsky classic is not a send-up, but that is exactly what it is -- rude, boisterous and more than a little, well, nutty.

Much of his invention is fresh and to the point. As usual with Morris, the production is gender-blind. Mother Stahlbaum is played with zest by a man (Peter Wing Healey), who doubles as a portly Dewdrop in The Waltz of the Flowers. The corps de ballet comprises both males and females, some on pointe, some not. The Snowflake Waltz, without doubt the show's highlight, is performed by this motley assemblage of 22 in an ingenious parody of classical choreography. But instead of the snow drifting down from the rafters, the dancers carry it onstage by the fistful, and each time they jump, they fling it into the air. Silly? Definitely. But like all the best sight gags, it gets more laughs with each repetition.

The Hard Nut, which was seen on PBS last week, debuted in Brussels' Theatre Royal de la Monnaie in 1991. Thanks to Belgian government backing, Morris was able to mount a handsome production, with especially lavish costumes. The largesse makes it even more unfortunate that in the end the choreographer's imagination is defeated by Tchaikovsky. In the second act the music expands opulently, demanding matching grandeur onstage. But Morris wastes the grand pas de deux on a routine group number and sets the explosive coda as a small- scale duet for Marie, the heroine, and the Nutcracker Prince. It's a bad letdown.

Still, Morris provides the audience with plenty of inspired entertainment along the way. The rodents that infest Marie's nightmare are purposeful robot- rats circling her with unblinking orange eyes. The various outbursts of sibling rivalry are pursued with a ferocity that prompts youngsters in the audience to pinch the overdressed child in the next seat. For the parents, Morris, 37, and his visual collaborator, comic-strip artist Charles Burns, also 37, offer heavily freighted tableaux -- how it was, way back when people wore bell-bottoms and leisure suits, and how it is now, when the wish for a perfect family Christmas collides with the need to knock back some extra holiday cheer.