Word: stage
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...petticoated-child journey through the land of the Sugar Plum Fairy. And suddenly, this Christmas I found myself listening to Tchaikovsky's tale and thinking of how long it had been since dolls and tutus. I wanted to prove to myself that magic is created by lights and stage mechanics. So one night this week, I went back to see the tree...
Viewing the orchestra pit had always been a preview to the main show. The smooth screech of a violin tuning up, the shrill whistle of the flute called me to the edge of the stage. I slid between a girl cladin a plaid dress with a big bow at the neck and a young couple dressed in formal wear. The yellowed, dried-out score lay open on the conductor's podium--"Peter Ilyitch Tchaikovsky" it read in spidery-flowing script...
...room went gray; I blinked, and it was black. The notes gathered and transformed into the familiar overture. The curtain hung heavy. And then, just as the little girl behind me asked her mother, "Mommy, is it starting yet?" the curtain lifted. Large flakes of snow sunk to the stage where a chestnut seller, the epitome of a Victorian Christmas, was hawking his wares. Families and children paraded across the stage into the wings. The lights did not twinkle gold against soft blue-gray; the stage was just a stage, and all the dancers were players on it. The tree...
Drosselmeyer displayed for the company two life-size wind-up "dolls," which clicked across the stage. He presented Clara with The Nutcracker, Fritz obligingly broke it, and the party wound to a close. The adults went to bed, and the real Nutcracker--the one I had remembered--started. Once upon a time...Clara came downstairs in her filmy princess nightgown to check on her beloved broken gift...
Throughout the audience, it seemed, little boys and girls were asking their parents for ballet lessons. They wanted tickets to the stage; they wanted to live the dream, be the dream...