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imagitory · 5 years ago

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D-Views: Mary Poppins

Hello, everyone, and welcome to another installment of D-Views, my on-going written review series where I dive into and analyze movies from Disney’s extensive film library, and even occasionally those influenced by that library. For other reviews in the series for movies such as Frozen, Enchanted, The Little Mermaid, and Lacewood Productions’ The Nutcracker Prince, feel free to consult the “Disney Reviews” tag! And as always, if you enjoy any of my reviews, please consider liking and reblogging them!

Today, thanks to the votes cast by @karalora, @banana-9-pancakes, and @aceyanaheim, we’ll be looking at the story of a magical woman -- one who is prim, proper, and practically perfect in every way...Mary Poppins!

Production-wise Mary Poppins is in some ways the culmination of everything Walt Disney learned in his thirty-year-long film-making career. It adapted a classic, whimsical story as an charming, emotion-heavy screenplay, like Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs -- it featured a fresh-faced, but extremely talented young singer in the title role, like Sleeping Beauty -- it seamlessly combined animation with live action, like Song of the South -- it had state-of-the-art special effects, like 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea -- and it featured music by two songwriters who later went on to write Disney film scores for decades. But all of that started with a tiny, little spark. As a little girl, Walt’s daughter Diane had started reading the Mary Poppins books, and when Walt read along with her, he was absolutely enchanted by them and knew he wanted to adapt the stories for the silver screen. All the way back in 1938, one year after the release of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Uncle Walt had his first meeting with Mary Poppins’s creator, P.L. Travers, but as anyone who has seen Saving Mr. Banks knows, the two did not see eye to eye. Uncle Walt spent the next twenty years trying to convince Travers to give him the rights to her stories, but unlike in the film where they had a sincere meeting of the minds, Travers recalled their final meeting where she gave him the rights as being more like Walt “holding up a gold pocket watch and dangling it tantalizingly in front of [her] eyes.” Admittedly one factor in the situation was that Travers herself had been having some financial trouble, and Uncle Walt’s payment for the rights to her books, as well as a portion of the gross profits for a film adaptation, was a boost that Travers severely needed. Despite the rights being given to Disney, however, Travers retained script approval rights, and for the next few years of production, she had quite a few complaints about the product. Even at the premiere of the film -- which, incredibly, she had not originally been invited to until she shamed a Disney executive into action -- Travers was very vocal about how much she disliked the film. The animation, done by some of the best in the business? Had to go. The story, which created such memorable and likable characters? Lacked teeth. The score written by the young Sherman brothers, who later went on to win awards for both Poppins and their other works? Left her cold.

Now, here’s the thing...do I agree with Ms. Travers? No. Do I like her as a person? No -- one would be hard-pressed to really admire a woman who decided to adopt half of a pair of twins from a poor family, raise the boy thinking he was her biological son, and then try to prevent her son from seeing his twin when the twin came to see him. (Yes, she really did that.) Do I think she was a malcontent who probably wouldn’t have been satisfied with anything? Absolutely. But at the same time, I must acknowledge, as a writer myself, it can be very difficult to share your creations with others. It can be hard even letting others read your works, given how personal and emotionally resonant the things you create often end up being, but it’s even harder letting others add onto your work. In a way, it’s like giving your child to a babysitter, except that unlike babysitters, most filmmakers who aim to adapt books don’t have a great track record in respecting the author or their vision. And in regards to Walt Disney specifically, his studio has never exactly been very interested in “staying true to the original story” -- the Walt Disney Company adapts the heck out of anything it touches. Even more modern Disney projects based on books like Ella Enchanted and Tuck Everlasting are great examples of this (if you’d like to delve into those films as adaptations, please look up Dominic Smith/The Dom’s wonderful Lost in Adaptation episodes for them -- they’re both fabulous!!). And in a way, Travers never saw her magical nanny as something light and cheerful -- this was an immortal woman who in later books once took the Banks children up into the Heavens on Midsummer’s Eve. Like the famous 1939 film adaptation of L. Frank Baum’s The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, there was definitely some dry wit and edge lost in translation from book to screen...and just like with The Wizard of Oz, Mary Poppins the film has largely taken the place of the original novels in the public consciousness.

But you know something? For what it’s worth...I think that, just like The Wizard of Oz, Mary Poppins succeeds in being a well-written, well-directed, well-performed, classic film, even if it’s so different than the book it was inspired by. And honestly, the world seems to agree. Mary Poppins grossed over $28.5 million at the box office, making it the most profitable film of 1965, and completely won over both critics and audiences alike. Even now at Rotten Tomatoes, it still boasts a rare 100% Fresh rating. It was nominated for 13 Academy Awards and won five (including Best Picture, which made it the first and only film Walt ever produced to win that honor) and also earned both a Golden Globe and two Grammys. Not only that, but the profits for the film were so high that they helped Uncle Walt fund his “Florida project,” which would eventually become Walt Disney World Resort. Mary Poppins later went on to inspire both a Broadway musical and a sequel, Mary Poppins Returns, and even today you can still meet both Mary Poppins and Bert in the Disney theme parks. So yes, “I recognize Ms. Travers had her opinion, but given that it is a stupid-ass opinion, I’ve elected to ignore it.”

PFFT, I’M KIDDING, ONLY KIDDING. Let’s talk about Mary Poppins.

Perhaps it’s appropriate that from the very beginning, the overture embraces us with the melody that will become the story’s main theme, Feed the Birds. The overture, like all the best Sherman brother overtures for films like Bedknobs and Broomsticks and The Sword in the Stone, is just a smooth, glamorous kaleidoscope of music. I also have to applaud the special effects team right off the bat with their overlaying of Julie Andrews as Mary onto the mat painting of London underneath our opening credits -- even now, when one can more easily guess how the trick worked, it’s still rather neatly done.

In this opening sequence, we also meet Bert, played by Dick van Dyke. The character of Bert was actually a compilation of several figures from the books, but that results in a very interesting, almost transient sort of character. This cheery, optimistic Jack of All Trades may have an accent that wouldn’t convince anyone, but is nonetheless unbelievably charming, and van Dyke’s physical comedy is so ridiculously on point. My mum and I have had a soft spot for Dick van Dyke for a long time because my late grandfather, although he was quite a bit older, resembled him quite a bit not just in appearance but also in attitude. Even now I look at Bert and fondly remember going to see the Broadway production of Mary Poppins with my grandparents, who ended up loving it and its music just as much as I did. It all the more makes me lament the end of the Soundsational Parade at Disneyland, which always concluded with a Mary-Poppins-inspired float covered in chimney sweeps and merry-go-round horses, one of which was ridden by Bert.

One of the changes that Ms. Travers was most disdainful of was the idea that the Banks family -- especially Mr. Banks -- had flaws that needed to be addressed and fixed by Mary Poppins. The flaw in the parents’ case is that they’re so focused on their own work and goals that they neglect their children’s emotional needs -- a plot point that would eventually get beaten into the ground in films that came later, but is not done half bad here. After all, the film doesn’t try to frame Mr. Banks’s job or Mrs. Banks’s activism as unimportant or bad in any way -- it’s just that the parents are solely focusing on those things. Mrs. Banks’s activism in particular, which is something that doesn’t appear either in the books or in the Broadway production, is something I really like. Sister Suffragette, which actually helped bring Glynis Johns on board to play Mrs. Banks, is just such a ridiculously fun song to sing. Although I wouldn’t ever say it’s the best song in the film by a mile, it’s still insanely catchy and entertaining, and I sing along to it every single time. WOMANKIND, ARISE!

David Tomlinson, who plays Mr. Banks, is easily the weakest link singing-wise, but fortunately he gives an acting performance that more than compensates for his poor vocals. From the very beginning, he comes across as incredibly pompous, self-centered, detached, and sexist, and yet he’s never shown to be an inherently bad person. He can be very cheerful, and even the way he’s framed makes it clear that a lot of his bluster is a front for his actual feelings, such as the way he falters when he realizes that Katie Nana has left the family. In the wrong hands, this role could’ve been despicable and shallow, but Tomlison handles it carefully enough that one can always see the emotion and suppressed softness in his eyes even long before he has his change of heart.

After an excellently paced entrance that involves effortlessly blowing away the line of nannies outside 17 Cherry Tree Lane, we are finally fully introduced to the magical lady herself, Mary Poppins. It is unbelievable when you remember that this was Julie Andrews’s first film role ever -- she’d previously only been a stage actress, but after finding success in both My Fair Lady and Camelot on stage and being denied the role of Eliza Doolittle in the film adaptation of My Fair Lady (which was later given to Audrey Hepburn), Julie accepted the role of Mary Poppins. Interestingly Julie was the only actor in the movie that P.L. Travers actually expressed some approval for, and honestly, I don’t blame her -- Julie is just flawlessly cast here. The role combines all of her performing strengths -- a great singing voice, expert dancing, inherent charm, sophistication, intelligence, pride, grace, and a touch of sass -- together in a cohesive, memorable character. Mary’s first song, A Spoonful of Sugar, really showcases Julie in her prime, spotlighting her flawless falsetto and precise pitch (as well as her impeccable whistling), and beautifully accompanies some of the at-the-time-revolutionary special effects. Although yes, it’s easy in the modern day to see how the effects were done, they’re never out-of-place or distracting, which is a testament to how much better practical effects can sometimes age in comparison to computer-generated effects. The things that tend to stick out most to my eyes are the green-screened stuff, simply because of how much that particular technique has been used in film and television since Mary Poppins’s release, but the nice thing is that it’s only one of many effects used, which helps in distracting the eye away from getting too used to one effect. Sometimes the effect will be stop-motion; sometimes the effect will be reversing the film; sometimes it’ll be green screen; sometimes it’ll be combining separate shots together. It makes it so that you would have to watch every scene several times and very carefully in order to pick out specific techniques, rather than just being able to go, “That’s fake, that’s fake, aaaaand...that’s fake,” the way you can while watching movies using only CGI.

Speaking of special effects, we have to talk about the sequence that made P.L. Travers the most upset -- the Jolly Holiday segment, set in an animated, living chalk drawing. Not only is the song just excellent, but the colors and energy of the piece are...well, practically perfect! It only serves to plus a song that was already pretty great and turns it into something amazing. Something else I like about Mary and Bert that I actually have to thank P. L. Travers herself for is that they are not romantically involved. Ms. Travers specifically indicated that that should be the case, and for a film made in the 60′s when male and female characters were almost always neatly paired off, it’s really neat that the two characters, despite some faintly teasing, flirty affects, never act like a couple. And really, having had both male and female friends since I was a kid, I really enjoyed seeing an attractive leading woman and man as friends. On the note of Mary, Bert, and songs I love singing along to, I would be very, very amiss if I didn’t also bring up Supercalifragalisticexpeliadocious. It’s really a very short number, but packed into it is so much energy that it feels like it never takes a breath. It’s like a sugar buzz, written into song form -- exuberant and big and loud and energetic...at least until the inevitable decrescendo as the rain wears away Bert’s chalk drawing and Mary, Bert, and the Banks children sadly return to the real world.

Our next adventure with Mary takes us to dear old Uncle Albert’s, where the aforementioned uncle, played by Mad-Hatter-voice-actor Ed Wynn, is rolling in the air laughing. This scene in particular showcases the various practical effects used in the film, whether hanging the actors on wires, putting them on one side of a seesaw, or even flipping the entire set on its side or upside down. Admittedly it’s very obvious that Katie Dotrice and Matthew Garber, who play Jane and Michael Banks, are having a harder time laughing convincingly than Dick van Dyke and Ed Wynn, which honestly is unsurprising given how many times they had to film this particular scene so as to get different shots. One story from the set of this film centers around Matthew Garber, after getting tired of recording the scene, receiving a nickle every time he had to go back onto the wires and in the end earning an “absolute fortune.” For child actors, Katie and Matthew aren’t awful, but it’s fortunate that they’re almost never the sole focus of a scene, as the more talented adult actors understandably overshadow them. And before you try to tell me it’s unfair to hold child actors to the same standards as adult actors, I grant that that’s true, but child actors can still give good performances that make them stand out as individuals...take Georgie Henley in The Chronicles of Narnia or Kirsten Dunst in Interview with a Vampire, for example. And as much as I’ll give Katie Dotrice and Matthew Garber credit for their performances, neither of them quite stands out that way. It’s admittedly a little harder for me to be that critical of Matthew’s performance, though, given that ten years after he retired from acting, he sadly passed away of pancreatitis at the age of 21. It’s very fortunate that thanks to his performance in Mary Poppins, Matthew will be remembered fondly for generations to come.

Walt Disney’s favorite song is frequently cited as Feed the Birds, and honestly, it’s little wonder why. As I touched on earlier, the song sort of sums up what the film Mary Poppins is trying to say -- that the smallest, seemingly insignificant gestures can mean so much. And isn’t that so integral to Disney, or even movies and entertainment in general? We all know of a character in a movie or TV show -- a line in a book -- a song someone wrote -- a simple smile from a stranger -- that somehow brightened up our whole world, that inspired us in ways we could never have imagined. And all of that comes back to sincere, gentle feelings, and how we can share those feelings with others. Mary Poppins, in short, is about compassion...and isn’t it little wonder why such a message resonated with so many people?

After an absolutely disastrous visit to the bank, the Banks children run out into the streets of London alone, where they’re fortunately found and walked home by Bert. Accompanying the jaunt back to Cherry Tree Lane is the Academy-Award-winning song Chim Chim Cheree, which is definitely catchy and, if I may say so, very fun to whistle. I admittedly am a little sour with Mrs. Banks that she doesn’t get a bit of a reality check when she ends up choosing to leave Michael and Jane alone with someone who’s effectively a stranger to her to go help her suffragette friends. It’s just fortunate that the “stranger” ends up being Bert and that Mary Poppins ends up coming back despite it being her day off, as otherwise Mrs. Banks’s negligent parenting could’ve had serious consequences. But the leap in logic does end up leading us into one of the best parts of the movie -- Step in Time!

Step in time, step in time, come on, matey, step in time! Hahaha, yes, this sequence easily has some of the best dancing ever recorded on film, right up there with the choreography in West Side Story and Singin’ in the Rain. It’s especially remarkable when you know that prior to Mary Poppins, Dick van Dyke had had no formal dance training, and yet he keeps up seemingly with ease with dozens of professional dancers. It blows me away every time. And despite the unending repetition of the song, it miraculously never becomes annoying due to the variety of the dance breaks and the high level of energy with which it’s performed. And really, despite the insane length of the song (it running over eight minutes all together), it amazingly never feels like padding. Perhaps it’s because the talent on screen is just so on display and integrated so perfectly with the building orchestrations and well-chosen special effects that it only serves to plus the musical action more and more and more until it finally culminates in the chimney sweeps escaping down the Banks family’s chimney and dancing off into the street.

As fun as everything has been with Mary Poppins and the chimney sweeps, however, Mr. Banks is now in danger of losing his job at the bank, and Tomlinson’s talent is made very evident once again in how, even after seeing all of his character’s mistakes and faults, we still feel very sorry for both him and for his family. Mr. Banks at first feels the impulse to blame Mary Poppins for his change in circumstances, but thanks to some pointed guidance from Bert and some compassion from his children, he comes to see the cracks in the foundation of his world view. And this goes back to the entire family needing help -- Mr. Banks is a very, very flawed man, but at the same time, as Bert brought up to Jane and Michael, he feels he has to handle absolutely everything on his own, and it’s largely thanks to the support of his children that he’s able to face the threat of losing his job with his head held high. Something I love a lot about the part where Mr. Banks makes his way to the bank alone is the Feed the Birds instrumental that accompanies his walk and that comes to a head when Mr. Banks reaches St. Paul’s, only to see the bird woman no longer there. Whether you choose to read it as the bird woman simply having left or having died or whatever else, it’s clear that every opportunity for charity and kindness we are offered is fleeting. Compassion is and will never be a passive thing.

Fortunately everything turns out for the best. Mr. Banks makes up with his children and he, Michael, Jane, and Mrs. Banks go fly a brand new kite in the park, alongside the film’s final song Let’s Go Fly a Kite. Mr. Banks even ends up getting his job back thanks to a joke that he told Dawes, Sr. the night we sacked. Even despite the cheer, however, it doesn’t feel completely saccharine and lacking of substance to me because Mary Poppins does still leave in the end. She doesn’t achieve the same kind of happy ending that she gave the Banks family -- instead she simply takes off into the air, presumably to give some other family help, with a faintly sad smile on her face. It’s remarkably mature of an ending for something that P.L. Travers thought was “all fantasy and no magic.”

Mary Poppins is not that much like the Mary Poppins books originally written by P. L. Travers. Perhaps at some points it sanitizes or misses out on what inspired Ms. Travers to write the books in the first place...but for all that is lost, I’m confident in saying that a lot was also found. There is a lot of heart in this movie, from a family growing and improving through the intervention of a wise, magical woman to finding deeper meaning in the seemingly insignificant things in our everyday lives. This movie is ridiculously fun to watch, but it’s not like the book Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, where there was never supposed to be a point and it was just there to entertain children. There are lessons one can learn here, and they’re not heavy-handed or pretentious in their delivery. One can learn the value of a sunny disposition, resilience, and empathy in less than stellar circumstances and see how a family full of love is the wealthiest and luckiest of all. And the best part? Those are lessons that both children and adults could stand to learn and re-learn through watching this movie for many, many years to come. Mary Poppins is an immortal figure, and even if this film was made by human hands and so couldn’t possible recreate P. L. Travers’s vision of her, the film is just as eternally relevant itself.

#d-views #disney reviews #mary poppins #disney #p.l. travers #opinion #analysis #reviews #walt disney #julie andrews #dick van dyke #pamela travers

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upontheshelfreviews · 6 years ago

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Merry Christmas everyone! To conclude this month of merrymaking we’re looking at an animated Christmas cult classic that I have a bit of a soft spot for. But perhaps it’s best to start at the beginning:

ETA Hoffman’s “The Nutcracker and the Mouse King” is one of my favorite fantasy stories, though chances are you’re more familiar with the famous ballet by Tchaikovsky that it inspired. The music is gorgeous and instantly recognizable, but few know the actual story of The Nutcracker beyond what your average community production rolls out every December. Much of the plot plays out like a variation of Beauty and the Beast with a protagonist akin to The Wizard of Oz’s Dorothy and story elements that wouldn’t feel out of place in a Grimms’ fairytale. Sadly, most of those details were lost in the translation from book to light holiday entertainment. Not that I’m complaining, I love the ballet, but there’s so much more to its origins that people aren’t usually interested in delving into.

I say all this because today’s movie, The Nutcracker Prince, is one of the very few filmic adaptations that pays faithful tribute to both its source material and its theatrical counterpart. In spite of – or perhaps because of – the popularity of the ballet, there’s been only a handful of film versions of Hoffman’s The Nutcracker (or at least a handful compared to something like A Christmas Carol). How good you find each of them to be depends upon your taste and the production value. I’ve found remarkably little about the making of this particular adaption, but that probably has to do with the fact that it was barely a blip on the box office radar. Released through Warner Brothers (which itself would issue another Nutcracker movie starring Maculay Culkin six years later), this was the only full-length animated feature created by Canada’s Lacewood Productions. A shame, really, because looking at The Nutcracker Prince you can see the studio’s potential. But thanks to the home video circuit, the movie has found a new life as a nostalgic Christmas classic for 90’s kids like myself. Let’s unwrap the reasons why, shall we?

If there’s one thing I appreciate about The Nutcracker Prince, it’s how it plays around with the music order to emphasize a scene’s mood rather than slavishly follow the original score. Instead of the recognizable jovial overture piping over the main titles, we have the Snowflake Waltz from the finale of Act 1, building an aura of mystery and magic to lure us into the story. A series of cross-hatched stills introduce us to our cast and characters, and I tell you, when you recognize these names you will not be able to look at this movie the same way. If I told someone that Anne of Green Gables, Jack Bauer, Lawrence of Arabia, Jimmy Neutron’s grandma and several prominent cast members from Canada’s Saturday morning fixture The Raccoons shared the screen together once, they’d think I was crazy, but as you’ll see it’s the honest to Zeus truth.

Our story begins proper with Clara Stahlbaum (Meagan Follows) and her younger brother Fritz delivering last-minute gifts to their neighbors on Christmas Eve. They race through the icy streets of Germany until they reach the shop of eccentric family friend Uncle Drosselmeier (Peter Boretski), a clockmaker and expert craftsman of mechanical toys. Drosselmeier greets the children and they invite him to come light up the Christmas tree with the family, but he enigmatically tells them he has to prepare for his nephew. This comes as news to Clara and Fritz, since they’ve known Drosselmeier for their whole lives and have never heard him mention a nephew before. Drosselmeier sends them on their way promising he’ll be at the Stahlbaum’s party that evening. Once they’re gone, he hints that there may be something magical in the air this Christmas…

“Blasted pixie dust everywhere! Once the holidays are done I’ve got to get the place fumigated!”

On their way home Clara and Fritz debate what Uncle Drosselmeier’s big annual present he makes for the family will be this time. Fritz, the little future warlord that he is, wishes for a working fort with a mechanical army, while Clara dreams of an enchanted garden where swans in golden necklaces glide across the water. This conversation is a little holdover from the Hoffman story that I like. One of the most difficult challenges every writer faces is writing natural sounding dialogue for children; while Hoffman’s dialogue is a bit stilted by the conventions of the era, the meaning still comes through. Fritz laughs at Clara’s fantasy but because he finds the idea of swans wearing jewelry more ludicrous than a magic garden, which is how an ebullient boy like him would think.

Back at the Stahlbaums, preparations for the Christmas party are underway. The parents give their children their presents: older sister Louise (who’s often excised from other adaptations) receives a pretty new dress, Fritz a hobby horse and toy soldier gear, and Clara a pair of ballet slippers and a new doll she christens Marie. I have to wonder if this is some kind weird in-joke since in the story, the main character is called Marie and the doll she receives is the one who’s named Clara. What happened during the process of making this movie that resulted in their names being switched? Clara is thrilled since these slippers bring her one step closer to her dreams of joining the royal ballet, but feels a touch bemused when she overhears her mother getting choked up at the notion that this may be Clara’s last doll.

The party arrives, including Louise’s boyfriend Eric. Clara and Fritz tease the lovebirds (though to be frank, anyone who wears a powdered wig twelve years out of fashion to something that isn’t a costume party deserves to be ridiculed) but something about their shared intimacy stirs something within Clara. This on top of the adult party guests commenting on how fast she is growing marks her entrance into that state of melancholy and confusion that comes from standing between childhood and adulthood and not knowing where you belong. Clara’s age is never mentioned though I suspect she’s roughly twelve or thirteen, right on the cusp of adolescence and about the time where that mindset begins to sink in. She still plays with dolls and treats them like they were alive, but imagines a future as an adult. There’s a growing sadness over the impending decision between the two that she subconsciously acknowledges through her playing with Marie. This theme isn’t present in the Hoffman story (Marie is a confirmed seven year old in the prime of juvenescence) but it’s been incorporated into the Maurice Sendak retelling a couple of years prior to The Nutcracker Prince and I like its inclusion here as well.

“I wonder if this is anything like what my pen pal Wendy went through with that Peter boy…nah, you’re overthinking it, Clara.”

But there’s no time for her to ponder the implications as a crack of thunder, gust of wind and explosion of fireworks marks the arrival of the final party guest – Drosselmeier. He comes bearing his greatest creation, an enchanting music box castle complete with marching soldiers, seven swans a-swimming, and figures dancing inside the ballroom. In another humorous scene from the original story, Clara and Fritz fawn over the castle while frustrating Drosselmeier with their requests to make the automated figures do more, leading him to go on a brief “kids today don’t appreciate shit” rant.

As the party guests waltz to the strains of more Tchaikovsky, Clara wanders by the tree and spies a present she hadn’t noticed before – a nutcracker in the shape of a soldier. He’s not the most handsome toy in the box, but there’s something charming about him that she is drawn to. Drosselmeier confesses that he’s just part of his gift for the family and demonstrates how he works. On seeing the Nutcracker, Fritz wrestles him out of Clara’s arms and insists he has a go. But because there are no nuts left, he tries one of his toy cannonballs and breaks its jaw. Drosselmeier cheers Clara up by telling a story of how the Nutcracker came to look as he does. And this is where things get…weird.

Now I don’t mind the inclusion of the story-within-a-story. I’m happy they go into how the Nutcracker was cursed unlike most other versions, and there’s some good gags thrown in that make me chuckle. It’s how they go about it that I take some issue with. First, look at the movie’s style looked so far.

The character designs are clearly inspired by Disney – big eyes, soft rounder faces, realistic body proportions for the main characters, only slightly exaggerated for the lesser ones. The backgrounds are warmly lit and richly detailed, like an early work by Thomas Kincade. Overall it feels like something out of a classic storybook.

Now here’s some screencaps from Drosselmeier’s story.

“All right, who changed the channel to Cartoon Network?”

The scene doesn’t even look like it’s from the same movie. It goes from feature film quality to a Saturday morning cartoon, and that’s not entirely coincidental. Lacewood Productions grew out of Hinton Animation Studios which primarily made, you guessed it, cartoons for tv. And Hinton Animation itself had its roots in Atkinson Film-Arts, the studio that produced The Raccoons, hence why some of the cast makes appearances. But because I couldn’t find anything on the making of The Nutcracker Prince, we’ll never know if they went this route because the budget ran out, or the animators didn’t feel comfortable drawing the entire movie in the Disney house style and worked out some kind of compromise, or they just wanted the reveal of the Nutcracker’s human form at the end to be an even bigger surprise. Given some time and creativity they might have been able to come up with something better. You could argue this is how Clara envisions the story playing out in her head, but I don’t think a child from the 1800’s would imagine a fairy tale in the style of Danny Antonucci. In fact, if you played music from Ed Edd and Eddy over this part it wouldn’t feel out of place. Everything is played up for nothing but laughs, not even the Nutcracker’s transformation into a lifeless object, which should be an emotional gut punch. And I’d be ok with all this if it was a short sequence, but it lasts fifteen minutes. That might not seem like long, but since this movie is only seventy-five minutes that means it takes up a good portion of its first half. Plus the cuts back and forth between the story to it being told reminds you of how jarring the whole sequence is compared to the rest of the film.

But on to the story itself. Drosselmeier’s tale takes place in a faraway kingdom belonging to a King who I can only describe Yosemite Sam in his golden years right down to the ornery western accent (it wasn’t until doing my research that I discovered he’s voiced by the Texan monster from the Beetlejuice cartoon which certainly explains it), an extreme doormat Queen, and their daughter, the “beautiful” but very spoiled and unfortunately named Princess Pirlipat. They have in their employ a world-famous clock maker and magician coincidentally also named Drosselmeier and his apprentice, his shy nephew Hans (Kiefer Sutherland).

“Patience, friends. The joke you’re all expecting is coming.”

The occasion on which this flashback takes place is the King’s birthday, and the Queen has put in an order for a cake made out of his favorite food, blue cheese (would that make it a blue cheesecake?) This has the unwanted side effect of drawing out every mouse in the palace. Led by the Mouse Queen (legendary comedienne Phyllis Diller) and her dimwitted son (Mike MacDonald), they pounce upon the cake just as the Queen is putting on the finishing touches.

With no time left to make a new cake, the Queen is forced to send it out to the King and his party guests. This disaster is almost salvaged by a sycophantic Emperor’s New Clothes-style response to the dessert, but Pirlipat ruins everything by whining how she refuses to eat that repulsive offal. The King promotes Drosselmeier to the post of Royal Exterminator and soon all the mice are caught – except the Mouse Queen and her son. She takes her revenge out on Pirlipat; using her dark magic she curses the princess with extreme ugliness, cementing it with a bite to the foot.

Oh please, that’s just Kellyanne Conway before her makeup.

Eager to blame somebody for Pirlipat’s state, the King is ready to execute Drosselmeier until the Queen suddenly intervenes and begs him to consider giving the clockmaker some time to reverse the curse. It was at this moment I realized the King and Queen here are like if the monarchs from Alice in Wonderland had their personalities switched. They even have the same body types as their Disney counterparts.

The King reluctantly acquiesces, but gives Drosselmeier and Hans no more than…well…did I already mention Kiefer Sutherland is in this movie?

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“Your obligatory reference humor, all wrapped up in one neat package. Merry Christmas!”

So Hans and Drosselmeier study the princess to figure out a way to break the spell, not helped by Pirlipat’s constant ear-bleedingly grating crying. Her only comfort is Hans feeding her nuts he cracks for her himself. Inspired, Drosselmeier researches well into the night and discovers the cure for Pirlipat’s condition – the Krakatooth Nut, the hardest nut in the world. It can only be cracked open by a young man who’s never shaved or worn boots and they must take exactly seven steps to and from the person they’re feeding the nut to with their eyes shut and without stumbling, which even by fairy tale logic is some damn arbitrary rules.

The King invites noblemen from around the world to crack the Krakatooth with the promise of marrying Pirlipat and becoming heir to the kingdom if they succeed, though he has them and the rest of the court blindfolded so they won’t be scared off by her hideousness. Unfortunately each man who makes an attempt winds up with a mouth full of broken teeth. The Mouse Queen, confident in her evil plan, watches the misery play out with delight. Hans, however, decides to give it a try, and to Drosselmeier, the royal family, and the Mouse Queen and Prince’s surprise, he succeeds. Pirlipat is transformed back into her normal, terrible old self, however the court is too busy fawning over their restored icon to notice what happens next.

Enraged over being foiled, the Mouse Queen casts a curse on Hans to make him “the prince of the dolls”. Before he can take his final step backward, she bites his foot and he is transformed into a wide-smiling nutcracker. In his new form he accidentally knocks over a line of busts domino-style, the last of which the Mouse Queen is too late to escape from. I love it when villains are hit by instant karma. Alas, Pirlipat takes one look at Hans and refuses to marry a doll that’s not even half as ugly as she was moments ago.

Yep. Totally unmarriageable material.

On seeing his prospective son-in law for himself, the King accuses Drosselmeier of trying to trick his daughter into marrying one of his contraptions. He has the poor guy who’s shown nothing but years of loyalty and service to his outlandish demands banished forthwith while he and his wife and daughter celebrate their own selfish victory. I always hated how they never earned some kind of punishment for their behavior, but considering the boundary-shifting turmoil Europe endured before, during and after this tale was written, it’s more than likely these foolish monarchs will get what’s coming to them in the worst possible way down the line.

Enjoy your power while you can, assholes. Come the Napoleonic wars, you’re all royally screwed.

As for the Mouse Prince, he mourns his mother for all of ten seconds before realizing her death makes him the new Mouse King. He declares to Drosselmeier that he’ll have his revenge on the Nutcracker – not for killing mommie dearest but for smashing the end of his tail when the busts fell and making it go crooked.

With the story done, we abruptly return to the party and Clara expressing her disappointment in Hans’ unfair fate. Drosselmeier assures her that while Hans may be stuck as a Nutcracker, he’s still the rightful ruler of the magical kingdom of the dolls and the spell over him can be broken, but only if he defeats the Mouse King and wins the hand of a fair maiden. I love Clara’s reaction to this; she rolls her eyes and wonders why all fairy tales have the same solution.

Long after the party has ended and the Stahlbaums are fast asleep, a restless Clara sneaks downstairs with her kitty Pavlova to check on her Nutcracker. She introduces him to his new subjects, her toys – Marie, her old matronly doll Trudy, and Pantaloon, the ancient captain of Fritz’s toy soldiers. Taken by a music box’s melody, Clara shares a romantic song and dance with the Nutcracker to the tune of the Waltz of the Flowers, not unlike the one Louise and Eric had earlier.

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And for those of you watching, yes, Clara is clearly rotoscoped when she’s dancing. I’m not against rotoscoping as long as animators don’t rely too heavily on it (COUGHBAKSHICOUGH), though the use of it here as well as in one other scene emphasizes how uneven the rest of the film’s animation is under scrutiny. I do wish there was a full version of this song somewhere though because it’s quite pretty.

The music comes to a sudden halt as Pavlova breaks an ornament. Clara quickly stashes the Nutcracker our of fear of being caught out of bed, but before she can return upstairs she’s startled by the famous ghostly image of Drosselmeier atop the grandfather clock in place of the decorative owl, his cloak billowing out like wings. He showers the entire parlor in pixie dust, and goofy-looking mice armed with forks and needles pop up from of every crevice. Pavlova scares them away from Clara until one arrives to scare him back – the Mouse King, looking far more intimidating than he did in the flashback.

One is an animation student’s design project, the other is Ratigan’s cousin. Would you believe they’re one and the same?

Drosselmeier also douses the toy cabinet with his magic and brings them all to life. The Nutcracker is woken up and, having no idea of what’s happened since the incident with Pirlipat, quickly has to come to grips with his new form and the fact that a sociopathic mouse has sworn a vendetta against him. And you thought the Hangover guys had it bad. Marie and Trudy plead him to take up his mantle as Prince of the Dolls and fight despite his inexperience. Fritz’s soldiers vow their loyalty and Pantaloon (voiced by Peter O’Freaking Toole) is made second-in-command. Though rather than do any actual fighting the old coot drones on and on in Shakespeare references.

“So we’re not watching Ratatouille Peter O’Toole so much as Man of La Mancha Peter O’Toole. Imagine my delight.”

Actually, like the Marie/Clara name switch before, I have to wonder if this odd characteristic of Pantaloon is another subtle in-joke or reference towards the original story. Hoffman was a big Shakespeare fan and often referenced him in his writings, including The Nutcracker. In the book when Fritz’s soldiers desert the battle, the Nutcracker cries out the famous line from Richard the Third, “My kingdom for a horse!” (paired down here to a simple “Come back!” when the toy horses run free). In a weird way, having Pantaloon riff on Shakespeare is a nod to Hoffman. On top of that, one of his first lines is “All for one and one for all”, which everyone remembers from Alexandre Dumas’ The Three Musketeers. Years after Hoffman’s Nutcracker was published, Dumas wrote his own version of the story which is the lighter, softer one that the ballet takes the most cues from. So whether or not this was intentional is up for debate, but if it was I give the writers all the credit in the world for honoring both authors of The Nutcracker in such an obscure and subtle way.

The battle between the mice and the dolls promises to be an exciting one. The problem is once it gets going, it’s so wildly unfocused. The mice and dolls run around each other aimlessly firing and flailing at will. Clara could end all this just by kicking the mice to the other side of the room, but she just stands to the side and giggles at everything happening. Then there’s Marie, who in spite of Trudy strongarming her into helping the fight barely does anything other than scream in a stereotypical Southern accent and complain about how all this fighting is spoiling her complexion, like if she were a more spoiled version of Princess and the Frog’s Charlotte LaBouff. She’s marginally more tolerable that Pirlipat. Granted she does have one funny moment where her dress gets splattered with cheese and that’s what pushes her into a violent rage against the mice.

“And you will know my name is the Lord & Taylor when I lay my vengeance upon thee!”

Anyway, the mice hold down Nutcracker long enough for the Mouse King to have a go at killing him. Clara finally intervenes, throwing her slipper at the Mouse King and knocking him off his high toy horse. But she slips on a marble into the clock and falls unconscious.

Clara wakes up back in her bed on Christmas morning, her head wrapped up in bandages. Nobody believes what she saw the previous night, owing her delusions to a fever sustained from her injury. Drosselmeier pays Clara a surprise visit and presents her with a newly fixed Nutcracker. Grateful as she is, Clara calls him out for not doing anything when his own nephew was in danger, though Drosselmeier states he’s not the one who has the power to save him. Clara’s mother insists she stay in bed and do nothing for the rest of the day, which, come on Mom. Worst Christmas ever.

That evening the Mouse King also pops into Clara’s room to return her slipper. Awfully decent of him, all things considering. After making more big talk about how he’s gonna turn Nutcracker into a pile of splinters, Clara lures him into her drawer with the promise of some chocolates Fritz left her earlier and traps him in there. She flees downstairs to hide Nutcracker, but the Mouse King has mastered offscreen teleportation and threatens to kill Pavlova if she doesn’t hand him over. The owl on top of the clock changes into Drosselmeier and once again he brings the toys to life. This time it’s just for moral support as Nutcracker and the Mouse King battle mano-e-mouso up the Christmas tree. It’s a big improvement over the first battle. There’s more focus since it’s just the two of them fighting and there’s creative use of the terrain and presents around it. My one complaint is that Nutcracker doesn’t drunkenly tackle the tree itself at one point, but we can’t have everything we want for Christmas.

Whomsoever pulls the sword from the spruce shall become king of all Toyland! Oops, wrong mythos.

At one point the Mouse King nearly runs through a defenseless Nutcracker but Pantaloon bravely intervenes at the cost of a nasty back wound. Finally, Nutcracker delivers the killing blow and the Mouse King’s body crashes to the floor. The mice scatter and the toys declare victory. But Pantaloon’s batteries are about to expire, and since the Stahlbaums out of double-A’s the only way to save him is to get him to the Land of the Dolls; the gate to which is coincidentally right through Drosselmeier’s castle. Nutcracker eagerly invites Clara to join them, and after saying some mysterious something or other about time, Drosselmeier shrinks her down to their size with magic. They enter the castle, and Pavlova goes to inspect the Mouse King, which, for a decomposing corpse, seems to be growling an awful lot…

In the castle Marie gets sidetracked by the waltzing gentlemen while the rest continue on. They reach some lovely winter gardens where the snow is made of coconut icing and the royal swans Clara has fantasized earlier wait to take them on their journey. Since Marie is too late to join them, she has to settle for being dragged through the air on a common mallard.

Still better than flying United Airlines.

The swans soar over a forest of Christmas trees up to the stars and through a magical waterfall that changes Clara and Nutcracker into attire befitting royalty and restores Pantaloon to health. They all land at a beautiful palace made of sweets where Nutcracker’s subjects give them a warm welcome. Clara and Nutcracker head out on to the ballroom floor to dance to my favorite piece from the ballet – scratch that, of any classical composer – the achingly beautiful Pas De Deux.

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Like Clara’s solo before, the choreography is rotoscoped, but they’re much more clever at hiding it this time around. The dancing plays out like a dreamy montage with the moves fading in and out from one another, alternating between pink and blue silhouettes, minimally colored full-body shots, and more detailed animation reserved for closeups. There’s also an old-fashioned Vaseline-on-the-lens-style filter on, the kind normally reserved for romantic moments from Hollywood’s golden age which befits the tone they’re going for.

With the dance done, Nutcracker asks Clara to stay with him and rule the Land of the Dolls forever. Clara is sorely tempted, but something holds her back from saying yes. The idea of living in a candy castle with her dream prince and childhood friends is too good to be true, a perfect happy ending. And that’s just it – an ending. Clara has dreams beyond that will never come true if she settles, dreams of seeing the world and being a prima ballerina which can only happen if she chooses to grow up, and she wants to in spite of how much she’s fallen in love with Nutcracker. It would have hit harder if this theme of choosing to mature vs. clinging to girlhood was explored more throughout the movie, but the point still stands.

Now that the desire to grow up has taken hold, Pantaloon, Marie and Trudy change back into ordinary toys, the spark of life bestowed by childhood imagination put out. One by one, the denizens of the doll kingdom drop like flies, their number growing as Clara keeps justifying her refusal to stay.

And as if things couldn’t get any worse, guess who crashes the party?

Ohhhhhh shiiiiit….

Up to this point the Mouse King was a comical villain who was difficult to take seriously. But now here he is like Ratigan in the final act of The Great Mouse Detective, bereft of his senses and embracing his inner animal. His chest wound is still bleeding, his breathing is ragged, he doesn’t even talk, and he shuffles forward like a zombie, but nothing holds him back his single-minded pursuit of Clara. You can’t even tell if he’s going after her because he recognizes the part she played in his eventual demise or he’s desperate to stick it to Nutcracker before he drops dead. Hell, maybe in his near-death state he’s so delusional that he thinks Clara IS Nutcracker. That makes it even more terrifying; he knows he’s dying but refuses to go without taking someone, anyone out with him in as violent a manner as possible.

The circle-eyes kind of kill it for me, though. I mean, when a bad guy or monster is cornering you in their final moments, which gaze is more threatening – bloodshot, glowing and blank, or colorful cartoon rings? Unless their name is Judge Doom, the answer should always be the former.

Defenseless, all Clara can do is pelt dessert at him. But it’s only delaying the inevitable. And when Nutcracker tries to help, the change slowly and painfully takes over him and he is forced to watch as his mortal enemy corners his true love, resulting in the most arresting visual of the movie.

Nutcracker gasps out Clara’s name one last time and morphs fully back into wood. A single tear remains on his face, the only sign he was ever truly alive.

The Mouse King traps Clara on the balcony, lunges at her and goes over the railing, finally taking himself out with a classic Disney villain fall. Clara pulls herself back up and sees the palace is now completely abandoned and filling up with mist. She cries desperately for her Nutcracker as the final heartrending strings of the Pas De Deux play, and the scene to slowly fades to black.

This scene…this whole scene from the moment the Pas De Deux began…how it got me when I was a kid. It broke my heart and did an echappé all over the pieces. Everything from the visuals to the acting and especially the music still punches me in the feels. For all my gripes about the inconsistent animation, this is the part of the movie where it absolutely shines. And thanks to the ramped up tension that follows every note, I’ve always associated this piece of Tchaikovsky’s score with poignant dramatic moments. Say what you will about the past hour of this movie, it is worth it for this excellent emotional climax.

Fritz bursts into Clara’s room startling her awake and declares Pavlova killed a crooked-tailed mouse by the clockwork castle. Clara dashes downstairs to the toy cabinet but finds Nutcracker is gone. She sprints out of the house straight to Drosselmeier’s shop. Oddly enough, he seems to be expecting her. Clara begs Drosselmeier to tell her if the story about the Nutcracker and the Mouse King is true for the sake of her sanity. But then, a handsome young man enters from the other room.

Drosselmeier introduces him as his nephew, Hans. Despite this apparently being their first time meeting, Hans greets her with familiarity, even bowing to her just as her Nutcracker Prince did. And his voice is one Clara would know anywhere. She in turn gives the perfect response.

“Hello…Nutcracker.”

If the climax already left me nearly speechless than the finale takes whatever little words are left straight from my mouth. As far as endings go it’s near flawless. I’d say The Nutcracker Prince borrowed from Disney’s Beauty and the Beast if it weren’t for the fact that it came out the year before Beauty did. Like The Wizard of Oz, it knows how to leave you on an emotional high note. While it’s supposed to be ambiguous, it’s the kind where deep down you just know the real answer without any explanations given.

“Though I can only imagine how awkward it would have been after she said that if it did turn out to be a dream.”

“SHUT THE FUCK UP CYNICISM YOU WILL NOT RUIN THIS MOMENT FOR ME!!”

And because this was the 90’s, our end credits play over another Oscar-bait power ballad, this one being loosely inspired by the Waltz of the Flowers. Not one of the best, but still a good one to close the film on. Enjoy!

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I honestly feel a little bad critiquing The Nutcracker Prince because at the end of the day it’s a fantasy, and fantasies play by their own emotional nonsensical surrealistic rules. It’d be like if Cinema Sins tried to blast a Jean Cocteau flick (and knowing those bastards’ egos they will if they haven’t already). Sure the characters aren’t the most deep, there’s some fluff in the story that could have been put to better use and the animation is inconsistent (characters go wildly off-model and if you pause at the right moment you’ve got plenty of fodder for the “DIDNEY WORL” meme) but when they get it right it’s wonderful. I’d say this and the obscure stop-motion version done by Sanrio (yes, the Hello Kitty factory) make for the most faithful and interesting retellings of The Nutcracker out there. I credit The Nutcracker Prince along with the Nutcracker Suite segment of Fantasia for introducing me to this magical music and story in the first place. I watched the tape quite a bit up until it got lost in the home entertainment shuffle, and enjoyed seeing it several times on the Disney Channel and Toon Disney during the holidays (and the occasional Christmas in July marathon). It’s not perfect, but hey, it wouldn’t be the holidays if you didn’t enjoy at least one imperfectly animated special that hits you over the head with nostalgia feels. Some people have Rankin-Bass, I have The Nutcracker Prince. And I hope the next generation will embrace it too.

Merry Christmas, and thank you for reading! Do you have a favorite version of The Nutcracker? Let me know in the comments! If you’d like to support me and see more reviews, consider supporting me on Patreon.

I’ll see you in the new year with Abby Kane’s requested review of Disney’s Pinocchio – that is, if my special Christmas present doesn’t keep me from finishing it on time (you’re going down, Ridley!!)

Artwork by Charles Moss.

Christmas Shelf Reviews: The Nutcracker Prince (1990) Merry Christmas everyone! To conclude this month of merrymaking we're looking at an animated Christmas cult classic that I have a bit of a soft spot for.

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yourekiddingright · 6 years ago

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ER-gh

As most Resolutions go, my blog writing has lapsed due to some recent events that we can call, “LIFE”. I spent last Friday in the ER with my dad. It’s my grandmother- she’s not well.

My grandmother is 90. I guess by all reality, that should just end there with the notion that she’s “elderly”. Sure, she can’t run, jump, remember all of the details of life or shake it like she used to. It’s deeper. She can’t walk, stand, remember most things right now and... dancing or singing with her- a locked up memory in my mind and heart.

I understand the practicalities of aging from a very surface standpoint. You get older, you don’t move as well as you used to, you can’t remember why you walked into a room, etc. For some of us, including myself, you don’t have to be 90 for this to begin to take shape. I’ve heard “age is just a number” but somehow that number seems to expedite itself when you’re sitting in an ER looking at someone who’s a shell of their old self. Those lips feel the same on yours but they don’t know you’re kissing them. That hair feels the same under your hand but it doesn’t smell like it used too... of roses and raspberries. That person looking at you sees you like you’re a super hero that’s taken on the likeness of Susan Storm- invisible.

I’m heartbroken, confused, a bit on edge... you name it. I haven’t “lost” her but I’ve lost her. I hang on to the memories I have with her old self, in her home, the place that I felt special even when she’d yell at me for not doing things the right way... her way. My mind travels all over thoughts of what used to be...

Her jewelry and makeup boxes or various perfumes housed in a “dressing room” when she lived in her house in Chicago... I would bolt toward them everytime I had an overnight with her. I put everything that I could on, in the hopes that she’d let me leave with a few treasures (which she always did). “Fine, take it... are you going to leave me ANYTHING?” and then she’d smile.

I loved the path in her house that led from the front door to the kitchen, it was perfect for acting as Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz or faux tap dancing to AM Radio in the morning while I shoved my face with Rye Toast covered in Apricot Preserves.

She had a peach spare room with the Apricot Room-Spray that I used over and over, just because I could. Truth be told, I only kept my suitcases in this room because I often chose to sleep next to her in her bed instead of sleeping by myself. We would wake up singing songs together or go to sleep laughing about whatever we could think of. Also, I secretely loved the fact that she always slept in nightgowns... real, silky, nightgowns... I loved snuggling up against them.

The Mr. Bubble bath soap that sat on the edge of her tub. I don’t know if it was the character on the front or the product itself that won me over, but I would always over-use this (and....well, because she’d let me pour it in myself... and then she’d get mad at me for it... but really, she laughed because I was over my head in bubbles).

Dinner theater, small shows and big shows, concerts... she helped develop my love for music & theater. We’d come home and sing Showtunes into coffee pots, bowls, whatever... just for the acoustics. She was alto, I was soprano. I always sung the melody while she did the harmony... somehow, I was ALWAYS flat.

I love(d) her Music Box playing songs from the Nutcracker Suite. “Don’t over crank it” she’d say every time I held it (still does) and now my daughter goes right to that Music Box when we visit (I always manage to push her out of the way, though). I used to pretend to wear tutus and dance around her living room as though I were a member of the NYC Ballet. She taught me to curtsy.

We took road trips (either back and forth from St. Louis to Chicago or to Wisconsin, some other place...) and she would bring her handheld cassette recorder to record all of the songs I would make up or the stories I would tell as we traveled. We’ve listened to them for years.

*SIDE NOTE: She never let me get a drink or snack at the gas station on those road trips because “what in the hell do we need that for? I brought water, juice, fruit... “ you know, all that a 7 year old kid could dream of.

I could go on... chocolate sodas, Marachino cherries by the jar, hair curlers, Museum trips, shopping at the mall (well, mostly “Pennies” aka JC Penny), ironing (because all sheets and towels need to be ironed too... and those slacks... keep the pleats in the slacks for crying out loud!).

She’s my grandma. I have all of these memories locked up tight within me that will hopefully never fade away... well, until I pee my pants and can’t remember anything. Until then, I’ll take what I’ve got.

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myafterlifewithjarchie · 7 years ago

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Looking for a Partner in Plot

So, here’s the thing. I’ve been wanting to write fanfics since ever, but the plots I come up with are too complex and overly ambitious and I find myself unable to actually get to write anything cause I get stuck during the planning.

I’ve always been looking for collaborators to work on the plot together, but I haven’t been very successful at that either. This is why I ended up dropping one project after another, with my great displeasure since I had spent months racking my brain on certain projects.

Now I decided to give some of my fics one last chance trying to find a collaborator. In this post I’ll present an outline of the most prominent fan fiction projects I’ve been working on hoping that some of you reading this post will be interested in working with me on it.

As of now, I’m not looking for someone to actually write the fic with (although of course if you are a good writer I’ll be very happy to know that you are interested) I am looking for a partner in plotting, someone who, like me, relishes in coming up with plots, imagining narratives and seeing the connections between stories. My primary aim at the moment is to complete the planning of the plot for one of these fics. Writing will come after that.

Btw i know that some of these fandoms are long dead, but I still hold dear my fanfic projects, so I’m still very willing to work on them and give them one last shot with this post. I’m not very good at summaries, so pardon me. English is not my first language.

Now, presenting the projects (working titles):

Archie Andrews & Jughead Jones - The Great Beyond Fandom/type: Riverdale - Hogwarts AU Pairs: Jarchie (main), Beronica (side), Jughead x Jason (past) Complexity: 8/10 Progress: 5/10 Plot outline: Archie, Jughead, Betty and Veronica are students at Hogwarts and during their fifth year the vanishing of Jason Blossom sends the school into shock. In an attempt to solve the mystery of the boy’s disappearance they will uncover a dark secret about the Second Wizarding War and they will be faced with a conspiracy that threatens the entire wizarding world. All the while having to deal with teenage problems. In this fic we’re expanding the mythology of the wizarding world and we’ll be delving in mysteries untackled by the books. Sabrina and Salem will be prominent characters. Also the fic is set one year after the events of Cursed Child and will feature characters from it.

Life is Strange in Riverdale Fandom/type: Riverdale - Life is Strange AU - Dishonored mythology Pairs: Jarchie (main), Beronica (side) Complexity: 8/10 Progress: 5/10 Plot Outline: Jughead and Archie have grown apart the last few months, but when Jughead witnesses Archie’s death in the school bathrooms. He discovers he has time powers and uses them to save his old the best friend. However, he’ll soon realise Archie’s life is being endangered on a daily basis by some evil workings of fate and so Jughead will try to save Archie’s life time and time again. He’ll have to come to terms with the fact that his meddlings with time disrupt the reality and because of this the town of Riverdale is endangered by higher forces. Jughead’s life is soon turned upside down by Jason’s ghost, a coven of witches and goodly entities outside of time. All the while he also tries to come to terms with his feelings for his best friend and the possibility that he may have to let Archie die in order to save the town. The fic will borrow some characters and mythology from Dishonored while presenting situations similar to the ones in Life is Strange. Riverdale will provide the setting and the character. Sabrina and Salem will also be featured.

Once Upon a Time in Neverland Fandom/type: OUAT Cannon Divergence Pairs: not focus but many involving Pan, Swan Queen (background) Complexity: 10/10 Progress: 7/10 Project outline: Peter Pan is not Rumple’s father but his brother. His aim is to conquer all the realms and he needs Henry’s heart to do it. This will be an alternative story to what happened in OUAT after episode 3x08 and will see Pan as the protagonist. It will be focused on Neverland and will feature a plethora of characters and stories. It is an expansion of the OUAT universe way beyond what we saw in the show. It will follow Peter Pan in his rise to power, from his origins, when he was chosen to take over the role of Pan, the protector of Neverland, from the Pan who came before him, to when he was corrupted by darkness and started craving for more power. His search throughout the many realms for the Heart of the Truest Believer and his plans for the conquest of the universe once he got it. We will see Pan moving the island from one world to another. Then the battles for the domination of Oz, Wonderland, the Land Without Color, Atlantis and the many other realms. Pan’s fights against the Olympians and the other gods and higher powers. We will see Pan facing the eternal rivalry between magic and science in the battle against Tomorrowland. We’ll witness Pan make alliances with many villains across the lands. His plans unfolding and being defied by the Resistance of the people of Storybrooke and the other havens who stood up to his growing empire. Ultimately we’ll see Pan attempt to conquer our world, working with the power of belief. We’ll see the workings of the people trying to take him down and his eventual demise. We’ll delve in into the back stories of many characters such as Pocahontas, the Nutcracker, Pinocchio, Jim Hawkins, the Golden Fish, Dracula and lots more. We’ll expand the mythology and set clear rules to magic. We’ll discover the origins of Neverland and the first Pan, we’ll see how the forces of Light and Darkness battled for the Heart of the Truest believer since the dawn of time. We’ll also see Pan’s many love interests (he’s pansexual after all). It will be one hell of a ride, if you’ll care to bear with me.

more details here

Rise of the Nightmare King Fandom/type: ROTG sequel Pairs: Jack x Jamie Complexity: 7/10 Progress: 3/10 Plot outline: This is the story of how Jack watched Jamie grow, how Jamie grew up with the ghost of Jack but he never stopped believing in him. They eventually realized they were in love with each other and decided they wanted to be together despite all odds being against them. It’s the story of their journey seeking help from other spirits and legend (Valentine, Father Time, Mother Nature, and other characters from the Guardians of Childhood), looking for a way for a spirit and a human to be together. This is also the story of how the boogeyman played Jack and Jamie and got them apart while he restored his power and took over the world.

Descendants - A Prologue Fandom/type: Descendants prequel Pairs: not focus Complexity: 3/10 Progress: 8/10 Project outline: This is supposed to be a short narration in which I tried to come up with an explanation as to why the land of Auradon came to be. Explaining how Auradon looks the way it does today. A mix of concepts from OUAT and Kingdom Hearts in an attempt to give a shred of plausibility to the world of Descendants. Honestly what the creators should have come up with to legitimize their world in the Disney canon but didn’t.

If you are interested in any of these projects you can contact me and let me know if you want to take part to the plotting or you can ask me any info you need. If you’ll decide to work with me i’ll let you know all the details about the plot so far.

Anyway, if you like my concepts, you can show your support with a like or a reblog, this way i’ll have a better chance at finding a partner in plot!

Contacts: you can message me on tumblr, skype ([email protected]), email ([email protected]), hangouts ([email protected]),

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hirias-gaming-habitat · 7 years ago

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1, 5, 14, 21, 23, 39, 41, 56 (my cousin would always do this, and if we had angry guests in Zoo Tycoon we'd drown them or feed them to dinosaurs ... yeah DX) 67, 70

Video Game Asks

1. First game you played obsessively?

- It really depends on how young I was tbh, the three I can remember playing ALL THE TIME as a child though were the Kelly Club game (I still have the disc, it lags a bit but actually STILL works on my current computer! Even though it’s almost 20 years old!), Barbie: Beach Vacation (several of the Barbie games actually, I also remember enjoying Barbie as Rapunzel, Barbie Pet Rescue, and Barbie Horseriding Adventures), and the first Pajama Sam game, Pajama Sam: No Need to Hide When It’s Dark Outside (I can’t BELIEVE that game is 21 years old now, omg) which tbh I sometimes still play today - the Humungous Interactive games were really fun!

5. Ever use cheat codes?

- When I was younger? No, because I don’t think I really knew how then, I mostly used to use the internet for dress-up games and didn’t really realise stuff like that was something I could just Google (although, most of the games I played didn’t need cheat codes). Oh WAIT unless cheats for The Sims count?! Cause I used to play The Sims and The Sims 2 round at friends’ houses and they taught me the ‘klaupicus’ (I think that’s how you spelt it), ‘rosebud’, and ‘motherlode’ cheats. Still use Sims cheats today :P And if walkthroughs count, I do use those more than I’d perhaps care to admit :P

14. Favourite game music?

- Ooooh this is a tough one, I have lots of favourite music/soundtracks in games. Love the Nancy Drew game soundtracks, the ones for Telltale’s games are pretty good, the Heart’s Medicine (a time-management game series) games generally have really lovely soundtracks, the music in Stardew Valley is GORGEOUS, can’t forget Life is Strange - the licensed tracks are particularly well-chosen but the original score is also great - Oxenfree’s soundtrack is amazing… Oh, and gotta give a shout-out to the music in The Sims 3, that stuff is catchy (I’ve played so much TS3 that I recognised a piece of music from it when it was being used as “gameshow” music on TV in an episode of Elementary :P) I think that’s about it for my absolute favourites.

21. Game you didn’t like or understand as a kid but you do now?

- (I have no idea why) I think when I was a kid I didn’t used to understand why people liked Tomb Raider, but I do totally get the appeal now and I’ve even been playing the 2013 version of Tomb Raider myself!

23. Game you’ve logged the most hours into?

- Before Steam, got no idea. But going by my Steam records, currently The Sims 3 (I thought that might be the case, lol) with 131 hours played.

39. A sequel you would die for them to make?

- Three words: EMERALD. CITY. CONFIDENTIAL. It’s a point-and-click adventure game set in Oz, about 40 years or so after the original Wizard of Oz, it presents Oz in a very noir-esque style, and the main character is a private detective called Petra. SUCH a good game, probably one of my favourites of all time. Unfortunately it’s not possible apparently because I think they don’t have the rights to it anymore or something? I already asked the creator (Dave Gilbert) about it a couple of years ago on Twitter. He DID (I think) say though I think theoretically they could make a game that takes place in the same universe (Oz) since it’s public domain or something, they just couldn’t use any of the characters or places (I think) they used before :P (Which defeats the point a bit but tbh I’d be curious to see what it’d be like)

41. A genre you just can’t get into?

- Horror. (Exceptions for things like The Walking Dead game and maybe a couple of other things, if those count) It’s not a film or TV or book genre I like either, it’s just really not for me :P

56. Did you ever play Rollercoaster Tycoon and kill off your guests?

- Did I ever play it? Yes! Did I ever kill off the guests? No, mostly because I didn’t even realise that was a thing, I wasn’t much good at the actual game itself if I’m honest, I could barely figure out how to play it properly, let alone kill off characters :P

67. Do you have a happy gaming-related childhood memory you want to share?

- My sister used to watch me play all the time, any time she did that was pretty happy and fun and it’s sweet to remember. Also sometimes she’d unintentionally help heaps without meaning to. One time, I was playing Pajama Sam 4: Life is Rough When You Lose Your Stuff and there was this bit when I was trying to figure out how to get Sam across this river made of fizzy drink/soda. Now, I was playing this around Christmas, and my sister randomly came into the room with something in her hand and said something like “Look, it’s a nutcracker!” and boom, it was a *lightbulb moment* because a few places back in the game, there was this giant nutcracker, and one of the only things I had in my inventory was a giant peanut. I raced back to the nutcracker as quickly as I could, clicked on it with the peanut and used the hollow peanut on the soda river - and bingo, that was the answer! That was a fun moment.

70. Very first game you ever beat?

- It was probably the first Pajama Sam game (as I said earlier, No Need to Hide When It’s Dark Outside), not exactly sure though.

Thanks Holly! :D

Send me a gaming-related ask!

#ask #wanderingthroughwickford #ask game

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bellringermal · 8 years ago

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What kind of a fairy-tale character is Gehrman/Maria? :D I thought about Rumpelstiltskin/Belle (I can't endure the cheesy OUAT anymore, but I love this ship) but...Maria is more violent, I think. What do you think? :3

This ask just put a big smile on my face for a whole bunch of reasons. One is that I got messages from two Rumbellers in the past weeks and the gist of our conversation was “I don’t even play videogames but I luv your art they remind me so much of Rumpelstiltskin and Belle” which isn’t that surprising considering that, just like you, I really like them as a pair and my Gehrman looks more like Robert Carlyle than the actual in-game model eheheh. (yes, I was one of those who watched OUAT just for Rumbelle. We’re quite a few :P).

LONG POST BELOW THE CUT

Story-wise I don’t see many similarities between the two pairings because the setting is so different and so are their roles. Rumbelle started out as a retelling of Beauty and the Beast with a few twists here and there while Gehrmaria is more like…. mmmh…. a Shang/Mulan kind of thing? Or at least that’s how it feels like in my head.

(Just a bit more pervy on 'Shang’’s part, u know :P)

But if we’re talking about chemistry oh boy… Robert Carlyle and Emilie De Ravin SOLD the ship to me from their first episode together. I have no difficulty believing they’re a real couple despite the age gap between the two being even bigger than the one I headcanon for Gehrman and Maria. I mean, Rumple is technically centuries old but I’m referring to their apparent age here. Emilie was 30-ish at the time and Robert in his early 50s. Gehrman is at least 7-8 years younger than Rumple is ;)

(I mean look at them gdammit TwT)

NOW LET’S GET TO YOUR QUESTION (why does it always take me so long to get to the question? XD)

It’s… very tough to associate them to specific fairytale characters because most classic stories feature stereotypical male and female roles. Even Rumbelle, which twists the concepts a little bit, can be summarized in ‘good-hearted woman tries to save fallen-from-grace man from himself’ (repeatedly, because the OUAT writers are lazy af) which doesn’t fit my interpretation of Gehrmaria at all. Neither of them need to be saved, they’re two badasses in a world infested by monsters and where the line between good and evil is often blurred. Maria is far from being the naive and innocent fairytale protagonist. (I firmly believe that if she found out about Gehrman’s fixation with her before really getting to know and admire him she would’ve laughed in his face. What a pathetic little man! :P) and Gehrman is not the stereotypical “powerful, impulsive,tyrannical male“ featured in stories like Beauty and the Beast and most victorian novels. Long story short, I feel like only some aspects of their relationship may echo fairytale/gothic romance tropes… I see a bit of Erik from ‘Phantom of the Opera’ and of Drosselmeyer from ETA Hoffman’s ‘Nutcracker’ in Gehrman (with a sprinkle of Rumple on top :P) and Maria, with her distaste for her supernatural and cursed ancestry always makes me think of the Countessfrom ‘The Lady of the House of Love’ and of most Marion Zimmer Bradley’s female leads.

From a pure visual standpoint, they would look cute af in a Wizard of Oz kind of setting >w

#anon ask #gehrmaria #<3

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silvermarmoset · 8 years ago

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I was tagged by @starlitdaydreams. Thanks!

Name: Silver Marmoset! Or Silver. Or Marm. I respond to most riffs on my url. Gender: Marmoset Star sign: Leo! Which shows you how accurate the zodiac is, because it never fits. (doesn’t stop me from reading the horoscope, though.) Height: 5’6” Sexual orientation: extra bonus marmoset

Hogwarts house: HUFFLEPUFF!

Favorite color: I like pink and blue and yellow. Favorite animal: Here’s a clue: it’s the animal in this picture wearing a party hat and playing the clarinet.

Average hours of sleep: On weekdays, about 6 or 7. On weekENDS, about 10 or 11. Cat or dog person: Both. Love them all. Favorite fictional characters: Ohhhhhhh shit okay I guess we’re going to be here for ages but Annie Sawyer? And Donna Noble? And Rose Tyler? And Martha Jones?? And Oswin Oswald. And Abed Nadir. And Geraldine Granger. And everybody in The Wind in the Willows! And Jo March!! And Sara Crewe!!!!! And Anne Shirley?!?! aaaaAAAGH

Dream trip: Going to Maine again. I also want to visit Berlin, someday, and Amsterdam. Dream job: Costume designer for a beautiful TV series.

When this blog was created: September 2014. When your blog reached its peak: It doesn’t have one “peak”—there have been good moments when a post I threw together slams itself up to the thousands of notes in a couple days, but then there are other peaks where a post I really spent time on and loved earns excited comments in the tags and gets passed around like a precious thing. Those are peaks, too. I intend to keep peaking. What made you decide to make a tumblr?: My friend—who I like to call “my son”—was (probably) sick of me writing Doctor Who metas on Facebook, and told me I had to get a tumblr now, immediately, at once. It was my second year of school, I was throwing my whole life up in the air and playing 52 card pick up with it, and I was easily swayed.

Fictional character i’d date: Abed. How many blogs do i follow: over 900. And yet my dash still dies after 11 pm. What do i post about: I’d like people to tell me this one, actually, because I don’t know for sure what the main shape of my blog is. But I imagine it’s a lot of fashion, a lot of food, quite a bit of costume designs, more and more art, some Doctor Who stuff, a dose of whatever I’m binging on, and a few deeply impassioned metas that mash up the costume side with the Doctor Who thing. Last movie i watched: I rewatched the 2016 “Jungle Book” the other day, because I love it. Last book i read: Ummmm I read a lot over break so I’m not sure but I think it was “The Girl Who Drank the Moon.” (it was good) Where would you want to time travel to: Concord, in around the 1830s. I want to meet Emerson, and do a play with the Alcott girls. Fictional character i would hang out with for a day: The Doctor. ——————— Rules: put your music on shuffle and list the first 10 songs, then tag 10 people. no skipping !!

"Brown Eyed Girl,” not sure who it’s by

"Hey Bulldog,” the Beatles

"Toto, I Feel Like We’re Not In Kansas Anymore!” (it’s just the dialogue track from The Wizard of Oz.)

"Dig A Pony,” Beatles Anthology 3

"Ticket to Ride,” Beatles Anthology 2

“Help: Another Hard Day’s Night” LOOK I’M VERY PREDICTABLE IN THE VOLUME OF BEATLES SONGS I HAVE IN HERE

"Prayer Arrows” by Coyote Oldman

"Glass Onion,” Beatles Anthology 3

The arrival of Drosselmeyer from “The Nutcracker”

"Blue Meanies” from the Yellow Submarine soundtrack

I swear I listen to more than just the Beatles. I promise you, truly

Tagging @paradoxymora, @orelseatlastsheunderstoodit, @tillthenexttimedoctor, @runningtogalaxies. No pressure to do it, if you don’t want to.

#huzzah

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theatredirectors · 7 years ago

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Ilana Ransom Toeplitz

Hometown?

Pittsburgh, PA (go Steelers/Pens/Bucs!) with strong roots in the Berkshires.

Where are you now?

Greetings from the Berkshires, where I just wrapped Sondheim on Sondheim with the Boston Pops at Symphony Hall & Tanglewood! It was brilliant production, Sarna Lapine is an incredible director and the Boston Pops is wonderful to work with. I have a long personal history with the BSO, so it was especially significant to be there. Steve [Sondheim] attended the Tanglewood premiere.

The 2010 Broadway show was revised and reimagined for a concert setting with brand new orchestrations for a full symphony orchestra. We’ve relicensed it with MTI and now pops orchestras across the country can do Sondheim on Sondheim!

What's your current project?

For something completely different…. I’m going to be Sarna’s Associate Director for the reimagining of the 2017-2018 Tour of Dirty Dancing. I’m especially excited because we’re working closely with the original writer of the screenplay and it’s quite a progressive, feminist story.

I do a lot of new musicals and musical comedy, and I love it. I’m directing Shark Attack!, a parody of the cult TV movie Sharnkado! which I’m in totally love with and I’ve turned it into an interactive drinking game. I love making musicals that are approachable and I also love wine.

I’m developing a new play with Alex Rubin (GROUP) at the Drama League (I’m a proud 2016 Drama League Directing Fellow). It’s a new play by a woman, about women, and thoughtfully tugs at the threads of self-image and forgiveness. Alex is a brilliant writer and I’m thrilled to be working with her.

I direct/choreograph a few tours with TheatreWorksUSA and really appreciate the work they do. I’m also super excited to announce that I’m directing a concert production of Baby: The Musical at 54 Below on February 4, 2018 as a benefit for Planned Parenthood! We’re getting together a stellar cast, and the writers have expressed interest in getting involved.

Why and how did you get into theatre?

I grew up around symphony orchestras so my favorite stories were always musical. When I was a kid, I was obsessed with The Magic Flute and The Wizard of OZ and when I went through my Annie phase, I wore a locket around my neck…with pictures of Albert Finney and Aileen Quinn inside (sorry Dad).

When I was 9, I saw my first professional production: the National Tour of Crazy for You open in Pittsburgh, PA. That was like experiencing pure magic. Seeing that show changed me forever, and it was also when I was self-diagnosed with Stromania.

For my 10th birthday party, I adapted an original script based on the “American Girl Dolls” series, cast my friends in various roles, and then directed them for the party. I tried to make fully-realized productions of The Nutcracker and Grease! happen before I was 12. For my 11th birthday party, I threw a “Career-oke” party where we dressed up as our career ambitions, developed a 10-year plan, and then sang karaoke.

After that, I took voice lessons and dance class every day and performed in as many musicals as my schedule would hold. I found directing and choreographing my senior year of High School (through Ahrens and Flaherty’s Lucky Stiff) Once I found it; that there was nothing else in this world that would ever make me as happy. It felt more fulfilling than performing because of the creative, collaborative, and organizational challenges a director/choreographer navigates.

What is your directing dream project?

The Producers. Followed by Merrily We Roll Along, Crazy for You, The Scottsboro Boys, Violet, and a full production of Reefer Madness (I directed both 4/20 reunion concerts with the original casts, (including Alan Cumming in 2014) at New World Stages).

What kind of theatre excites you?

The kind of comedy that makes you a little uncomfortable, and then you decide to laugh through it. I love dark comedy because it takes you to a dark place and challenges you to laugh while you’re there. I believe dark comedy nurtures our sense of resilience, both individual and collective.

What do you want to change about theatre today?

I’d like to see more female representation on the creative and management side: more female directors, choreographers, writers, producers, managing directors, general managers, executive directors, company managers, original parts written for female-driven shows with strong female leads, you name it – we are underrepresented.

Also, more government support. We can take a cue from Europe and have more government-subsidized arts, to help offset ticket prices and bring more people to the theatre. I believe many EU governments do this, without the government stepping in for season planning.

What is your opinion on getting a directing MFA?

Think about why you want to go to grad school, and ask yourself if there is any other way to get what you’re looking for. Sometimes the answer is yes, sometimes the answer is that you will need an MFA.

Get an MFA if you know you want to teach someday - and if you have a plan for managing the investment, or if you need the connections and have no other way of accessing them. Go to grad school in the place where you want to grow roots, from the faculty with whom you’d like to build relationships.

Johnny Silverstein said he learned is process in grad school, Rachel Chavkin said it gave her two invaluable years where she could purely focus on her art. I have not gone to grad school….yet.

Who are your theatrical heroes?

I’m obsessed with Susan Stroman. She has been my hero since I was 12. Following Stro’s career has taught me that a woman can direct comedy, be a successful director/choreographer, and be funny without being self-deprecating. She doesn’t let anyone put her in a box. I had the honor of working on her recent concert revival of Crazy for You at Lincoln Center.

Also Leigh Silverman, who was the first mentor to really take a chance on me. She taught me the importance of being true to yourself, leading with thoughtfulness, coming in prepared, and the art of mentoring other females.

I have some incredible female directing mentors: Leigh Silverman, Sarna Lapine, Michelle Tattenbaum, Baayork Lee… They all taught me to be strong, be kind, and pay it forward in their own ways - among many other things.

Any advice for directors just starting out?

Dan Knechtges gave me excellent advice when I first moved to NYC:

1. Try to see something every week, and try to sit near the back of the theatre so you can see the movement patterns of the choreography.

2. Read the news every day.

3. Make a new contact every week.

My best advice:

1. Be kind to everyone. No exceptions.

2. Every process can be a wonderful, happy, and healthy process. It will take work, but it’s always worth it.

3. Always include and acknowledge other people in your success because no one does it alone.

4. See everything you can. You often learn more, and quicker, from the bad stuff, than from the good stuff.

5. Find a mentor, be a mentor. Help someone at every opportunity you have.

6. Shadow every position in the theatre you can: learn the vocabularies of lighting and set design, house management, company management, and definitely learn about stage management. This can only make you a stronger, more understanding director.

7. Do other things besides theatre, because you’re only as diverse as your palette.

8. Travel, because you’re only as diverse as your palette.

9. Be a good friend - and have good friends outside of the theatre.

10. Listen to Dan Knechtges.

Plugs!

These are incredible writers I adore: Alex Rubin, Eric Dietz, Susannah Jones, Sarah Ziegler, Ben Boecker, Nadav Wiesel, Britt Bonney, Alex Sage Oyen, Maggie-Kate Coleman, Drew Gasparini & Alex Brightman!

Jacob Keith Watson is brilliant, and I want to cast him in everything I do because he can do anything and is an absolute pleasure to work with.

Also… Baby the Musical: In Concert! At 54 Below on Feb 4th, in benefit for Planned Parenthood!

#Ilana Ransom Toeplitz #Ask A Director #Theatre Directors

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nofomoartworld · 8 years ago

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Hyperallergic: A Revived 1920s Ballet Will Be a Surreal Confection of Candy and Kitsch

Betsy McBride as Swirl Girl in Whipped Cream (photo by Ruven Afanador; images courtesy of American Ballet Theatre)

A Gibson girl with a perfectly coiffed Vidal Sassoon bob wearing a ballgown made of slabs of meat and sausage links; a wide-eyed, silver-haired, childlike waif half submerged in a body of water containing amoebas, protozoa, body parts, and a foetus; Amanda Seyfried as a lady with ermine (in this case, it’s a dead cat) and Katy Perry posing like Titian’s Venus in a “Garden of Earthly Delights” settings — these are just a few examples of the works of pop-surrealist painter Mark Ryden, who, in his 30-year career, brought the lowbrow art movement out of the underground circuit of Southern California and into the mainstream.

So when American Ballet Theatre’s choreographer and artist-in-residence Alexei Ratmansky and artistic director Kevin McKenzie decided to revive Richard Strauss’s surrealist and saccharine ballet Whipped Cream (called Schlagobers when it was originally performed in Vienna in 1924), Ryden was the ideal candidate to create the set and costumes. The libretto features a boy who just received his confirmation venturing into a pastry shop and overdosing on sugar. His excesses cause him to hallucinate, and his delirium takes the shape of a massive whirl of whipped cream emerging from an outsized bowl. He then finds himself at the hospital under the ministration of doctors and begs to be saved by Princess Praline, Princess Tea Flower, and Prince Coffee. Liquors, who are also part of this royal contingent, seduce the medical staff into a drunken stupor, and the ballet ends with an apotheosis of sweets — the original also contains a riot of lowly pastries pacified by vats of beer.

Sketch courtesy of Mark Ryden

Ryden joins a rich tradition of surrealists dabbling in theater work: Salvador Dalí worked on a production of Le Tristan Fou, Dorothy Tanning did the costumes for Balanchine’s The Night Shadow, and Ernst and Miró worked on Diaghilev’s Romeo et Juliette, just to name a few.

This is a first for Ryden, who had no previous experience with theater design save for the dioramas in his “Gay 90s” series, which came with backdrops, stagings, props, costumes, and even miniature light switches. For Whipped Cream, he worked with costume designer Holly Hynes and set designer Camellia Koo, who translated his artwork into sets, props, and danceable gear. “I could never have begun to do this project without their experience and expertise to back up my complete lack of experience and knowledge,” he told Hyperallergic, with more than a hint of modesty. Hynes, who has designed costumes for five American Ballet Theatre productions, was careful to stay true to Ryden’s art and not getting caught up in the theatricality that is part of designing for the stage. To her, the experience was akin to being a midwife. “Mark did all the work making the baby,” she told Hyperallergic, “I just [helped] him birth it.”

In order to avoid undue influence, he didn’t extensively research Ada Nigrin’s original costumes for the Strauss production, which stand out for their elaborate Art Deco elements. Instead, he went straight to the source: “The first thing I did when this project came up was to get a CD of the music,” he said. “The music is wonderful… It contains such a great variety of feelings and moods, from exciting marches to very dreamy ethereal passages. It was fun to listen in the dark and imagine what might be on stage.”

What he imagined was a candy-colored dreamscape paired with his trademark surrealism. Swirl Girl wears a puffy pale pink number that reproduces the swish of icing. Princess Praline (who will be danced by Sarah Lane, Misty Copeland, and Cassandra Trenary) wears a coral-pink tutu with a candy-striped bodice and a matching skirt dotted with white pom-poms meant to represent sugar sprinkles. The costume for Princess Tea Flower (danced by Stella Abrera, Gillian Murphy, Isabella Boylston, and Hee Seo) is more elaborate, in that it reproduces the shape of the tea flower in a realistic fashion: The skirt has rows of olive-green leaves punctuated with blossoms, while the bodice comes with petals that are hand-painted, bedazzled, and face upward. That was Hynes’s favorite item to work on, and the fact that the petals were designed to be positioned that particular way created a unique set of challenges: “When the yoke or basque of the tutu connects to the bodice, we had to but the skirt on top of the bodice, which is the complete opposite of a traditional tutu,” she explained. “I love shaking up tradition, so this was a blast.”

Stella Abrera as Princess Tea Flower in Whipped Cream (photo by Doug Gifford; image courtesy of American Ballet Theatre)

If those costumes seem straightforwardly pretty and cute, that does not apply to all of Ryden’s creations for the production. In fact, for the “Whipped Cream Waltz,” the ensemble number at the end of Act I that Strauss envisioned as a riff on the traditional Ballet Blancs such as the swans in Swan Lake, the wilis in Gisele, or the snowflakes in the Nutcracker, Ryden did not create the expected billowy white tutus. Instead, he looked to Japan’s Zentai fashion, which consists of unitards covering the entire body. “My Whipped Cream ballerinas are a take-off on that theme,” he said. “We added a transparent soft cape made of the most beautiful and fascinating fabric. It is so weightless that it gently moves through the air as if it were made of smoke.”

Mark Ryden’s signature elements are widely present in his artwork for the ballet: The ballerinas are drawn in the style of his wide-eyed waifs; the color pink, from candy-coral to cooler hues, has been used generously in both costumes and sets; the sets themselves feature elaborate trompe l’oeil versions of the moldings and engravings that Ryden favors for the frames of his paintings, and the yak — a big, doll-eyed white beast not unlike the luck dragon in The Neverending Story, to whom Ryden devoted his entire “Snow Yak” series in 2008 — plays an important role in the boy’s hallucination. There are many more of his trademarks, but both Ryden and Koo kept mum about the specifics. “You will just have to come see the show and try to find them all!” said Koo.

Character studies. #abtWhippedCream @abtofficial @segerstromarts

A post shared by Mark Ryden (@markryden) on Mar 10, 2017 at 7:52am PST

#abtWhippedCream @abtofficial @segerstromarts

A post shared by Mark Ryden (@markryden) on Mar 9, 2017 at 10:04am PST

Koo also has words of awe for the production’s builders and scenic artists who were tasked with recapturing Ryden’s painting style. “I do not just mean that they can copy inch for inch Mark’s very detailed final colored artwork,” she said. “It is through their own genius artistry that they really capture Mark’s style and joy and spirit in all of the details, which truly give life and vibrancy to the painted elements of the beautiful world that Mark has created.”

A lowbrow artist is the ideal complement to Whipped Cream, as today’s audiences are more keen to understand the mix of high and low art that puzzled theatergoers and critics during the ballet’s original run. In fact, the production was unanimously panned when it premiered: It was called derivative, banal, derisory, inartistic, of poor taste, and, above all, kitschy. “This whipped-cream morsel is, however, not so easy to digest,” wrote Viennese critic Heinrich Kralik. Perhaps understandably, the ballet’s outsized budget and escapist theme clashed with wartorn 1920s Vienna. “People always expect ideas from me, big things,” Strauss confessed in a letter to his friend Romain Rolland, who won the 1915 Nobel Prize in Literature. “Haven’t I the right, after all, to write what music I please? I cannot bear the tragedy of the present time. I want to create joy, I need it.”

Sketch courtesy of Mark Ryden

While working on his designs, Ryden, a defender of the use of kitsch in art, found himself sharing that mindset. “The use of beauty and joy in art is often judged to be kitsch,” he explained. “I don’t fear the use of kitsch in my art. I believe kitsch is a domain that holds the powerful universal archetypes of the collective consciousness.”

With few productions to date (40 performances in Vienna in the 1920s, a premiere in Breslau, a Vienna Symphony and Volksopera production in 1964, a Milanese reenactment at Teatro Nuovo sponsored by a gelateria in 1989, and a revival at the Gärtnerplatztheater in Munich in late 2014) and such high-profile artistic collaboration, Whipped Cream has the potential, McKenzie reckons, to become a new classic. “Very few people have heard the score, very few people have heard of the tale,” he explains. “So it’s an all new experience. For the people who believe that ballet isn’t necessarily for them, the draw of the artwork, the fact that it is a fantasy tale and it leans ostensibly toward theater [more] than ballet, may produce an entirely new audience.” He sees Whipped Cream as ABT’s own Wizard of Oz. Does this mean Ryden came up with elements as iconic as the yellow brick road, the bedazzled slippers, or the gleaming towers of Emerald City? He is perhaps overly cautious about such enthusiasm. “I guess only time will tell if something in particular stands out and resonates,” he said. “The everlasting endurance of the ruby red slippers is not the kind of thing I feel you can predict or consciously create.”

Sketch courtesy of Mark Ryden

American Ballet Theatre’s Whipped Cream will be performed at the Segerstrom Center for the Arts (600 Town Center Drive, Costa Mesa, California) from March 15 to March 19. A New York run at the Metropolitan Opera House (30 Lincoln Center Plaza, New York) will follow from May 22 to July 1.

The Art of Whipped Cream will be shown at Paul Kasmin Gallery (515 W 27th St), opening May 20.

The post A Revived 1920s Ballet Will Be a Surreal Confection of Candy and Kitsch appeared first on Hyperallergic.

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jessestoddard · 8 years ago

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One day I was stretching in the little space the tiny University Fitness gym allotted for such activity, and Mae happened to be there doing her Yoga. We were friends and had gone to the Puyallup fair with some mutual pals, like Lisa Yu and another personal trainer from the gym, John Tailor.

By the way, John ended up in a reality TV show called “Too Fat For Fifteen,” and ended up getting his Ph.D. and being teacher of the year in New Jersey. At the time, he liked Mae and was always hitting on her. Sorry, bud.

John Taylor in “Too Fat For 15” Reality TV

I was usually very private, but for some reason, I decided to come clean and needed to confess to someone—so I told Mae I was a homeless derelict. She took pity on me and decided to help. It just so happened that she was house-sitting for some rich doctor friends in Seattle, taking care of their dogs in their frequent absences.

She let me stay at her apartment while she was gone! Can you believe the faith of this woman? To this day, she admits she has never even thought of doing something like that before. I now get to tell people that I lived with her before we even dated. Talk about a crazy conversation starter!

I moved in and even slept in her bed (without her being there of course), while she was gone and my brand new apartment was finishing inspection. Later, when she came back, I moved to the couch as the project continued to be delayed. We had many conversations late into the night and actually got to know each other a little.

When I moved out, I asked my dad to help me build something for her as a gift. She didn’t have a good towel rack in her apartment, so we fashioned one out of wood and added some elaborate scroll saw work on the side of a tropical scene for decoration. We stayed in touch and eventually started dating.

It was near the end of my college years that decided to get back to the theater and I began auditioning for local theater on the professional level. I wanted to see where the dance training, combined with my music minor and acting training combined would take me.

It was then that the 5th Avenue Theater in Seattle took note of me and made me one of their premier chorus boys off and on seasonally from about 2000 to 2005. I worked through the ranks as an Equity actor and had a few good roles as well.

My first show was Gypsy, the life of Gypsy Rose Lee, one of my favorite musicals, where I danced with a few other great performers like Louis Hobson (who has some notoriety in Seattle with his own theater and a few IMBD credits), along with Greg Allen, one of the funniest men I have ever met and the greatest tap dancer.

Gypsy at the 5th Avenue Theatre

Greg has made a life of working professionally in the northwest and rarely needs to find other jobs, other than working at a coffee shop here and there between gigs. He made that choice long ago, stuck with it, and I commend him for it. The lead in Gypsy was played by Judy Kay, a fantastic and powerful singer with a long career on Broadway, who we used to see singing in New York at the Macy’s Day Parade. Every night I used to marvel as she closed the show with high notes and a ringing vibrato that filled the halls: “Everything’s coming up roses for me and for you!” I was a regular Joe among true battle-tested professionals.

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Over the years I would perform in shows like Most Happy Fella, the 5th’s 75th Anniversary Gala fundraising events, Hair (twice, where I was the psychedelic modern dancer and acrobat with a giant glow in the dark phallus that everyone obviously assumed was real), A Chorus Line, playing the role of Don, The Wizard of Oz (the hardest show to be ensemble in, with all the crazy set changes and the green unitards), Yankee Doodle Dandy, a Hairspray Promo, Singin’ in the Rain, and Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, where I got to back up a special show with Lucy Lawless, popular at the time for her role as Xena the Warrior Princess on TV.

Lucy was amazing, tall, beautiful and extremely gracious to us chorus boys and girls. We got to pick her up and twirl her and I was the one with the knee to the ground so she could sit on my lap as she flirted with the audience and sang.

After the show, as we left the stage door in the alley, I had never seen so many ravenous fans awaiting any performer. Even on Broadway, when I later waited for friends to get out of their shows, even the big stars did not draw these kinds of crowds. It also happened that this crowd filled the entire alley and circled out into the street and around the city block, all awaiting with bated breath the appearance of Lucy Lawless.

It was the largest number of Lesbians to ever congregate in one area at one time. We should have called the Guinness Book Of World Records, as it surely would have made the cover.

As with everyone else, Lucy was patient and gracious and took plenty of time to greet her fans and sign autographs. Poor clueless me thought it might be for us boys, and immediately checked my posture and flexed my muscles. I couldn’t understand why they never gave me or the other boys a second look. One of my coworkers had to point out to me that Lucy had a huge Lesbian following that traveled from all over to see her. We could have done a ribbon cutting ceremony of the alley and named it the New Isle of Lesbos.

We all went to dinner at Palomino’s just down the block after the show. Lucy went out of her way to raise us up and even kissed us on the cheek in front of our fans and parents just to make us look good. My uncle to this day is mesmerized by the lifestyle I lived, and everyone enjoyed the pleasant fiction that I had exotic Amazon women singers and dancers hanging all over me on a daily basis feeding me grapes.

Singing, dancing, and acting all at the same time requires a certain set of skills that relatively few people master. I was so fortunate to be allowed into this elite group of people for a short time in my life.

At the time, I had no clue how rare the opportunity or how lucky I was. I was having a blast and working hard and making more money than I had ever made in my life.

During college, I had tried a ton of entrepreneurial ways to make money, including starting a jewelry business, buying “tiny little ads” in newspapers, and even buying and selling real estate. I was constantly reading the papers and thinking outside of the box and going to seminars. It was an incredible time of dreaming and conquest for me.

My friend Gary called me an “Artist-Entrepreneur,” and I began to try to live up to it. I looked into starting a dance school, started an Internet import business before everyone else was doing it, and also took jobs for local ballet companies playing the prince in the Nutcracker or something when I wasn’t working at the 5th Avenue Theatre. I did a couple of runs with a theater on Vashon Island, where the parents and patrons of the theater would house me and feed me while I did the show. I lived out of a backpack and didn’t need much at all to live, so I was very happy.

Also beginning around 2001 I moved to New York City to try my hand there. When I wasn’t in Seattle working for the 5th, I was on an airplane. I found a scholarship that helped with the costs and decided to maximize it.

I stayed with a college friend, Ryan Jones, or “Jones” as we all called him, who had graduated from the UW drama program and married another artist, thereby landing in the Burrough of Queens. Jones was running a non-profit and starting this own theater projects. He now runs a new dance and performance art physical theater company with his new wife in Los Angeles.

It was a culture shock for me, but very good. I rode the trains and subways and lived in spare rooms and on couches for months at a time. I took dance classes alongside New York City Ballet dancers (that could mop the floor with me) and singing lessons from an amazing old sage called Maria Farnsworth who trained New York City Opera singers. I auditioned and honed my craft. I was eating, breathing, and sleeping New York and I loved the Big Apple and all its glory.

I ended up sleeping on a futon at my college roommate, Michael Bilikas’ pad in Greenwich Village. Michael was at this point at NYU dental school, and still on his phone all the time. His place was $1,700 per month for a tiny studio apartment in the early 2000’s, and the place was hopping all night. The only hour of quiet was between the hours of 3 am and 4 am, when the nightlife finally died down, and right before the garbage trucks came to clean up to start the day all over again.

A week before 9-11 I was in still in New York, preparing to fly to the gulf side of Florida to visit with my parents who were on vacation to see my aunt’s new place. She had moved to start over and was tired of the rain and cold in Washington State.

Around that time, Mae had decided on her own to come visit me in our tiny palace of squalor in Manhattan. I was too dense to admit it to myself at the time, but our relationship was going somewhere and she was pursuing me. I had long ceased to pursue anyone and was happy with my only-child alone time, and single laissez-faire lifestyle. I was focused on my fanciful career pursuing the elusive stage.

Mae and I did a little tour and ended up at the twin towers and then decided to have lunch in the financial district. I was comfortable getting around but didn’t really know that area. I decided to take her to lunch, but we couldn’t find even a lowly sandwich place that I didn’t have to take out a mortgage to afford.

I ended up putting an over-priced soup and sandwich on my credit card and tried to be chivalrous. I wanted to stay in New York City, and I secretly hoped Mae would just stay, but we both knew I didn’t have a real job or any kind of financial security to speak of, and we all know how attractive a man is and how secure his lady feels when the best he can offer is a futon in a dental student’s apartment.

I flew out from NYC and directly into the airport that we later found out the terrorists flew out from. I remember how laid back and relaxed that airport was then. The trip to Florida was short, but again reminded me how much I love the sunshine and palm trees.

As soon as I got back to Seattle we saw on TV a plane crashing into the twin towers. We were all in shock and completely stunned by the tragedy. The little airport in Florida and every other airport in the country decided to start increasing the security after that.

Life After High School: Chapter 9 Vagabond One day I was stretching in the little space the tiny University Fitness gym allotted for such activity, and Mae happened to be there doing her Yoga.

#Blog-to-Book

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