`Hard Nut': A Chaotic Alternative To `Nutcracker'

----------------------------------------------------------- "The Hard Nut," "Dance in America" presentation, 7 p.m. Wednesday, Channel 9. -----------------------------------------------------------

If you're one of those who can't stand "Nutcracker" or if you're bored with the glitter and elegance that usually are the hallmarks of most performances of that much-loved ballet, then you'll probably love what choreographer Mark Morris has done to it.

If, on the other hand, "Nutcracker" is one of those holiday traditions which you eagerly anticipate, you might be well advised to skip Morris' interpretation. In his own inimitable fashion, Morris has reset and restaged, rethought and redesigned the famous ballet that is celebrating its 100th birthday this season.

Morris titled his version "The Hard Nut" and the production he created while his company was in residence two years ago in Brussels is the one being presented on PBS' "Great Performances" as a "Dance in America" special at 7 p.m. Wednesday on Channel 9. (While we're seeing a film of the Brussels performance, Morris has staged the American premiere of the work that is being performed in New York.)

Certainly Morris has every right to restage the ballet as he sees it, but his version is often closer to disorganized chaos than to dancing. Morris makes much of the fact he has reset the ballet in the 1960s and that he was influenced by the comic-book artist Charles Burns.

But while the guests at the Christmas party in Act I are wearing wonderful re-creations of the worst excesses of 1960s party clothes and the skimpy set tries to recall 1960s decor, the plain truth is that none of this has much to do with anything. When we get to the heart of the story, in Act II, we're back with a fairy tale about a Princess looking for someone who will crack the "hard nut," the kind of quest/challenge seen in every fantasy from "Cinderella" to "Turandot."

The familiar Tchaikovsky melodies are still there in "The Hard Nut" but in unfamiliar surroundings. "The Waltz of the Flowers" now looks something like the "Waltz of the Vegetables" and some of the well-known dances are as likely to be performed by men as by women - and sometimes by men in women's clothing. Morris insists gender has nothing to do with his casting and in truth when the snowflakes are dancing - about the only scene which closely resembles other "Nutcrackers" - it works just fine as a kind of group activity. (Far stranger is a pas de deux between Drosselmeier, who has been turned into a kind of sinister Hathaway Man, and his handsome nephew.)

Old or new versions, the E.T.A. Hoffmann story which inspired the work is a pretty odd piece of literature to begin with. But what has endeared it to audiences for a century, in its dance form, is a sense of magic, of being an elegant dream, qualities with which choreographers have cloaked it. And this, of course, is precisely what Morris has tossed out.

Thus, in "The Hard Nut" we're left with an opening scene that qualifies as the Party from Hell. (One is also curious why, with Morris' insistence upon keying everything to the 1960s, the Mother's dress is an anachronistic gown that looks more like the 1890s, in glaring contrast to the miniskirts and bell bottoms worn by the others.)

The second act resorts to a fairy story, just like the other versions, except this one is devoid of charm and beauty, of anything resembling magic.

Certainly Kent Stowell's version of "Nutcracker" for the Pacific Northwest Ballet is a lot classier and more imaginative than "The Hard Nut." And if you can't get tickets for it at the Opera House or find the fine movie version of it playing somewhere on TV, then be advised that Mikhail Baryshnikov's version of "The Nutcracker" for American Ballet Theater will be showing at 3:40 p.m. Thursday on KCTS-TV.

Watching handsome Baryshnikov and breathlessly beautiful Gelsey Kirkland tell the "Nutcracker" tale once more is the perfect antidote to "The Hard Nut."

A NEW TRADITION?

----------------------------------------------------------- "The Bible," 5 and 9 p.m. Sunday through Wednesday, A&E channel. -----------------------------------------------------------

Here are four of the more unusual - and compelling - hours of TV airing this week, subtitled "Charlton Heston Presents the Bible."

While that may sound a bit grandiose, A&E describes these four hours as "performance documentaries" and the series is a combination of Heston reading/telling the most familiar stories from the Old and New Testaments, filmed at the Holy Land locations mentioned in the stories and accompanied, from time to time, with some of the greatest paintings in the Western World used as illustrations for Heston's narration.

It's an unusual idea and, based upon the first hour, "Genesis," it comes off splendidly. Heston's familiar and stirring voice brings the right qualities of drama and sincerity to the stories, each of which is placed in context by Heston's introduction.

But while Heston obviously reveres these stories, he brings a flesh-and-blood quality to his telling that keeps them alive, not merely reverential re-creations. He introduces the program by pointing out these stories began long before the printing press, long before everyone could read and that they were handed down the centuries through their retelling, as he proposes to do.

The first hour includes the stories of the Creation, Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, Cain and Abel, Abraham and Isaac and Noah and the Flood. The subsequent three hours will continue on through the Nativity to the Crucifixion and Resurrection of Christ.

Then, on Christmas, all four hours will be repeated in sequence, beginning at 1 p.m. This fine A&E venture could be the start of a Christmas tradition.