Of (Mutant) Mice and Men (in Tights)

All right, then. YOU decide.

I'll say it again: the "Nutcracker Suite" ballet, which, over time, has become a Christmas tradition, is a sick, twisted journey into psychotropic drub aguse. Sorry, I meant to say drug abuse. See, it's still haunting me.

We have no business subjecting young, impressionable children to this stuff, particularly after we've already plumped the kids full of sweets, candy and egg nog, and then told them not to peek while an old, hairy, obese guy, wearing red felt and black go-go boots, slips down the chimney and starts handing out free Wii consoles.

Doubters, are you? All right, then.

YOU decide.

The now-famous "Nutcracker" music, which was written by Peter Bogdanovich Tchaikovsky (or maybe it was Paddy Chayefsky), was based on "The Nutcracker and the King of Mice," a story written by a German fellow named E.T.A. Hoffman, who later invented airport flight delays.

Unlike some authors, E. "Dustin" Hoffman took up writing later in life. His first career, as a pest-control expert with Das Orkin Uber Alles, ended badly following an unfortunate rodent-related incident in the nearby hamlet of Hamelin.

Yes, rodents. Coincidence?

In what may have been a further foreshadowing of things to come, there were young impressionable children involved there in Hamelin, too, not to mention a roving mercenary woodwind artist named Pied.

Although the "Nutcracker" story's details have changed over the years, as eyewitnesses eventually were laid down or sobered up, the basic plot remains the same. And it remains a disturbing jaunt through a disturbed mind, a maddened maze of mice and imaginary men, of makeshift tourniquets and massive tooth decay.

The central character of the "Nutcracker" story is a young, very hairy German girl named Fur Elise. Among other bad youthful decisions, Fur gets mixed up with some gypsies from the opera "Carmen," which was a constantly looming danger back in ancient times, especially in years that began with "ye olde." The gypsies tease Fur until she agrees to partake of some tea made of psilocybin truffles, after which she lapses into a candy-laced dream about a magical wooden Nutcracker formerly known as Prince, who promises to take Fur Elise to an enchanted place where they'll "party like it's ye olde 1999."

Sadly, their travel plans are delayed due to the Nutcracker's fierce battle against a Mouse King with seven heads (many of them played by Arlen Specter). Eventually, though, Prince overcomes the King's album sales, then drags Fur Elise around the European club circuit, where she basically sits and fumes while "Mr. Sensitivity" is entertained by successive groups of nearly-clad women.

Sick stuff, this.

Still doubting, are you? Okay, let's review the story in detail. As Act I begins, a bunch of rich people are ramping up for a wild party.

Mmm hmm. This is what, in Fairy Tale Analysis school, they call a "clue."

It's Christmas Eve at the compound of the ruthless Stahlbaum truffle cartel. The Stahlbaums (literal translation: Scarface) are hosting their annual Border Mule Appreciation party, and for some reason, their children, Fur Elise and Onde Fritz, are getting along. (Right there, you know drugs are involved.) The kids are dancing and playing, occasionally playfully poking each other in the eyes.

Guests arrive, a lot of bowing and ye olde high-fiving goes on, and everyone takes note of which loser-fraus are wearing the same tired outfits they wore at Thanksgiving.

Suddenly, a Godfather named Oscarmeyer appears at the door, not realizing he's in the wrong movie. Oscarmeyer is not only a major player in the Teutonic Mafia (literal translation: more than one tonic), he's also a skilled clock-maker, a gifted toy-maker and effectively lethal at close range. Swiftly getting into the party spirit, he pulls out two blazing automatic weapons and the head of a guest's prize racehor ...

No, sorry. Wrong movie.

Oscarmeyer pulls out two life-size dolls which begin to dance ... on their own, mind you, they begin to dance ... and everybody calmly watches these two lifeless toys self-animate and dance around the compound. None of the guests collapse, shrieking in madness; nobody runs out of the room babbling for the police, or for some nearby exorcism-enabled Lutheran.

The mood is set. As the attending adults grow ever more inured to bizarre behaviors, they begin unwrapping and re-swapping Pajama-Gram gift boxes, trading Frank Zappa quotes, and thumbing through the Stahlbaum's pre-DVD collection of Quentin Tarentino DVDs (Johannes Gutenberg edition).

Huddled around the Christmas tree, the kids are keeping busy enjoying a game of Checkers, making playing pieces using tablets from their Ritalin prescriptions. In a grand flourish, Oscarmeyer presents his holiday presents to Fur Elise and Onde Fritz. Fur is given a stiff, attractive nutcracker whose solitary skill is that its mouth moves. (Oddly, given nothing but that single talent, it will one day manage to get itself elected President of the United States and win the Nobel Peace Prize.)

Onde Fritz gets some kind of lame, bobo bugle. Unimpressed, and out of Ritalin, he develops a marked tic in his left eye, grabs his sister's Nutcracker, and snaps it in half.

Fur Elise is heartbroken. (She's also furiously homicidal, in a howling, Stephen-King-character, blinding-black-rage kind of way. But mostly, heartbroken.) Happily, Oscarmeyer is able to quickly repair the Nutcracker by plugging its injury with billions of taxpayer dollars he magically draws from the air.

The adult guests finally reach a glazed level of shared over-medication and begin to drift out the front door and toward ye olde SUVs. Onde Fritz and two other truants grab some matches and head upstairs, muttering something about "Oscarmeyer" and "effigy." Fur Elise grabs the Nutcracker, gulps from a nearly adult beverage, and falls asleep.

Round midnight, Fur notices that the Christmas tree seems to be growing taller, and she shouts "Ich bin ein Berliner!" (literal translation: "Whoa. That's, like, trippy, dude!") The wall clock seems to be melting into a magic ring. Keanu Reeves runs down a wall and convinces her to eat the correct pill, and then an invisible cat grins and offers her a chaser of Pulp Fiction Orange Juice (starring John Travolta as Samuel Jackson). Next, the room is filled with an army of mice, led by their leader, King Specter.

Offstage, we hear a markedly non-liturgical litany, as Oscarmeyer discovers and then stomps out his own effigy.

Suddenly, the Nutcracker Prince blows a bugle, awakening a Mr. Potato Head and two animated avatars who sound just like Tom Hanks and Tim Allen. They all advance on a box of toy soldiers, conscript them, and immediately forget to not invade England. The Mouse King captures the Nutcracker and forces him to rebuild the Japanese economy, using counterfeit petro-dollars and the business analytical techniques from some consultant named Deming.

Fur Elise, realizing that the First Act is nearly over, whips off an open-toed shoe and heaves it at the Mouse King, hitting him squarely on heads two, five, and six. The Mouse King drops to the floor and the mice run away, dragging their leader's body along, in hopes of restoring the King's big-headed body once multiple-skull skull fractures are covered by Universal Health Care, sometime around ye olde 2014.

Now that there's no longer any danger of anybody hitting him, the Nutcracker claims the whole ballroom as his kingdom, invades France, and demands that no one shall operate the TV remote control but him.

And then came Intermission. (literal translation: How Can Chocolate-Covered Peanuts Cost Twenty-Seven Dollars?)

After the lights dim, the Nutcracker transports Fur Elise to a pre-Super Bowl party in The Land of A-Recreational-Drug-Often-Referred-To-As-Snow (starring Johnny Depp as the Mosquito Coast Mule and Al Pacino as Miami Beach).

Once their appetites return, the couple rolls on to visit The Land of Sweets, where they're scheduled to have a mid-psychotic-episode conference with the Sugar Plum Fairy; however, Sugar can't take a meeting right now because she's busy negotiating a hostile takeover of Tooth Fairy, Inc. Sugar has them wait in her outer office for hours. After some frenzied phone calls, Sugar scores some comp festival tickets for her guests, so Fur and the Nutcracker ultimately kill the afternoon at the United Nations, watching the General Assembly perform some dances (literal translation: non-binding resolutions). First, there's the Spanish, then the Arabians, the Russians, the Chinese, the Mirliton, the Waltz of th...

WHOA. Hold up. The Mirliton?

Yes. The Mirliton: a giant gingerbread house named Mother Ginger barges on-stage and, without even a "Hello sailor," rips off her Velcro-prepped skirt.

And naturally, in the world of E.T.A. Hoffman, eight little gingerbread children live under there.

The little ginger-kinder jiggle and dance, though, oddly, they never hold up any "HELP ME" signs or make a sudden break for the border, or the Lutheran exorcist in the wings.

Mmm hmm. And we Americans thought WE had a housing crisis.

Why "mirliton?" Good question. According to our friend, Mr. Internet Search, a mirliton is a pear-shaped vegetable, or a chayote squash, or a comic book cat, or a kazoo, or a festival in New Orleans. And so, for blisteringly obvious reasons, this little slice of Tchaikovsky's late-night indigestion has managed to get itself manifested as the Dance of the Mirlitons.

Now, after the Mirliton dance is over, the cookie-based kiddies file back under Mother Ginger's skirt, making it look like the gingerbread is eating the children, a disturbing image which is enough to put you right off your chocolate-covered raisins.

Next, as I recall the plot - and I don't - some flowers dance a waltz, but by now, the audience is beginning to question sanity and some other cosmic fundamentals. So it's frankly a bit of an anticlimax when Sugar Plum eighty-sixes the Tooth Fairy and installs her own Chief Operating Officer (Psychosis Division), the handsome, spandex-sporting Cavalier (literal translation: Sugar Plum's sister's boy). Sugar and the Cavalier dance a beautiful pas de deux (literal translation: more than one pas).

Finally, because the theatre was only booked for two hours, Fur Elise wakes up from a diabetic coma. She's under the tree, cradling the Nutcracker, nursing a hammering headache, and missing a shoe. And as Oscarmeyer dials Child Protective Services, the curtain falls and we fade to black.

And for some reason, the audience is absolutely STARVING.