The preferred alternative version or, using Crate and Barrel–speak, the “modern traditional” version of Nutcracker is, without question, Mark Morris’Hard Nut, back for its triennial appearance at Cal Performances in Berkeley. Funny and irreverent, surely, yet it’s also a tremendous example of direct, emotional, musical storytelling. Morris conveys a much more involved (and involving) version of the story, following E.T.A. Hoffmann’s source story. Morris avoids cliché and opens up surprising new possibilities in the story you think you know.