Some good ingredients, yet not baked quite through

In today’s world, where starvation and child abuse is rampant, it’s no surprise that the beloved fairy tale “Hansel and Gretel” can take on dark meanings. It was fortunate, then, that Tyler Nelson, in spite of an unseemly pair of lederhosen, danced like a gelled-haired prince on Sunday at Glendale’s Alex Theatre in the male role of the Brothers Grimm classic.

The production, mounted by Media City Ballet, was choreographed by artistic director Natasha Middleton-Kettebekov and her husband, associate director Askar Kettebekov, whose uber-dramatic witch was all fire, brimstone and leaps. However, this tale, part of the troupe’s fifth anniversary season, was in need of a lot more fairy dust.

It was danced to a pastiche of taped music, including Richard Strauss and Engelbert Humperdinck, whose “Hansel and Gretel” opera features the hummable “Evening Prayer,” also heard here. The stage was often cluttered with children, the corps sloppy and the scene transitions awkward.

Indeed, without Askar Kettebekov and 23-year-old Nelson, whose star power shines in his long, elegant line, liquid jumps and quicksilver beats, there was little else to elevate this from the mundane.

April McLeod’s Gretel, capable in her own right, never rose to the level of Nelson; the siblings’ evil mother, Gabrielle Palmatier, who also designed the costumes (more shabby than silk), comported herself with adroit malice; and Arthur Shinomia’s father proved serviceable.

The use of black light effects in the nightmare scene was clever -- at first: 18 creatures and seven skeletons crept around in a seemingly endless danse macabre, climaxing with the appearance of a huge floating snake (manipulated by unseen performers). After the fifth waft, a dozen angels, fronted by Felicia Guzman, who, regrettably, had wobble issues, arrived en masse, albeit tentatively.

Kettebekov amped up energy in his gingerbread house (the painted backdrop sets, credited to eight people, were by the book), his rabid dancing the true treat as kiddies in a cage feigned fear. After his oven-baked demise, though, the final lackluster scene (Nelson’s solo variations notwithstanding), proved moot.

Storytelling is an art; storytelling through dance a high art -- something Media City Ballet has yet to master.