This "Nutcracker" Was Not So "Suite"

Last night Tomkin and I had dinner at Villa Roma. It's kind of a hole in the wall, but the restaurant actually used to be a dining car, and the pizza was delicious. Really bad service, but still a fun (and cheap) place to eat. Tomkin had never been to the ballet before (he's seen other dance, but not ballet in person), and I figured "The Nutcracker" would be a pretty good way to ease him in. So we got tickets to Ballet Minnesota's version, which was being performed right here in St. Paul. Sounded great! Unfortunately, it was TERRIBLE. First of all, most of the dancers were children, which was just weird. (Although, as Tomkin pointed out, that's how you draw a big audience--there were lots of enthusiastic parents there.) The orchestra was bad, the set design was mediocre, and the dancing was downright awful. Plus they made lots of weird choices (such as lowering two swings in once scene...then raising them back up without anyone using them). Fortunately, it was SO bad that it was quite entertaining. And everyone else there seemed to love it! Tomkin said this won't really count as his first ballet; we'll try again another time.