A classic ballet
There are new sites to see at this year’s Eastern Connecticut Ballet production of “The Nutcracker,” the perennially popular show that is set in 19th-century New London.
The show boasts some fresh scenery andspecial effects this time around, with backdrops by set designer Fufan Zhang, who earned her MFA from Yale School of Drama. In fact, the drops were built at the Yale School of Drama’s set design shop.
The new scenery is focused on southeastern Connecticut’s seafaring history. For instance, the opening scene is set in the Whaling City’s port in 1850, and ECB executive director Lise Reardon researched what the port and its buildings looked like during that time.
So theatergoers will see a backdrop with such familiar structures as the Custom House and a Whale Oil Row building. They’ll see, too, everything from the New London Lighthouse to Arctic ice fields, which is where some of New London’s whale ships travelled.
The aforementioned special effects, meanwhile, will range from a blizzard on the Arctic sea to a growing Christmas tree.
Of course, the bigger effects here are the ones provided by the prodigiously talented group of dancers. Two stars from the New York City are returning to perform as the Sugar Plum Fairy and the Cavalier — Sara Mearns and Jared Angle. Guest artists from Miami City Ballet will be part of the performance, as will 100 trained dancers from ECB.
And a note of local interest: Making a cameo appearance will be New London Mayor Michael Passero. THOMAS GIROIR Eastern Connecticut Ballet’s “The Nutcracker,” 1:30 and 7 p.m. Saturday and 1:30 p.m. Sunday, Garde Arts Center, 325 State St., New London; $42-$52 adults, $25-$32 kids, 50% discount to active military and their families for Sat. night show only but additional discounted rates on matinees as well; (860) 444-7373. The Spy Who Dumped Me
This action comedy is a bit of a mess, as if it’s a first draft of screenplay or first cut of a film. It pinballs around among by-the-numbers chases and shootouts, and scenes that seem heavy on improvisation, with that improv working better at some times than others. Director and co-writer Susanna Fogel lets star Kate McKinnon run wild, which can be a good thing … until it’s not (see the whole sequence when she infiltrates a performance-art-type circus). McKinnon overshadows Mila Kunis, as they play pals who become embroiled in a globe-trotting espionage adventure. I will say, though, that I’d watch a whole movie built around McKinnon character’s relationship with her adoring, enthusiastic and slightly clueless parents, played by the invaluable Jane Curtin and Paul Reiser. Waiting for Eden
Elliot Ackerman
With a decided nod to Dalton Trumbo’s “Johnny Got His Gun,” Elliot Ackerman has delivered a deeply melancholic short novel, “Waiting for Eden,” about a love triangle wherein the nuances play out against the ghastly realities and repercussions of war. The title character, a career soldier, is bedridden in a San Antonio burn hospital after miraculously surviving an IED explosion in Afghanistan. He’s physically frozen — a charred torso void that stares with minimal brain activity around his room. But does his mind work more than the doctors know? His wife refuses to leave his side, sending their infant daughter to live with a grandmother. The ongoing realities and crucial backstory elements are narrated by the ghost of Eden’s best friend — a fellow soldier who died in the same explosion. While Trumbo’s classic was angrily written as a fiendish and deliberate anti-war horror novel, “Waiting for Eden” doesn’t make any overt statements about war. It’s a story about love and loneliness, expectations and desperation as a result of war. Ackerman, whose novel “Dark at the Crossing” was shortlisted for a National Book Award, is a writer with a deliberate but evocative style — Hemingway with an absinthe flash. And he knows of what he writes: he spent eight years as a medal-winning Marine Corps Special Ops team leader.