A LITTLE INTERLUDE

Even a littler interlude, actually, than the previous Maiorano--Isadora ballet collaboration, Backstage (1978). Here we have Bobby, who's about to dance in The Nutcracker for the first time, encountering a black man on stage playing a piano; trading a few pointers on ballet-dancing for a few pointers on piano-playing; and then discovering that his new friend ""Jiminy Cricket"" isn't a member of the orchestra, but a stagehand. . . whose inspired impromptu playing and laughs at his own clumsy dancing will presumably be enshrined in Bobby's memory. But for all the warm feeling--and Isadora's sometimes acute, sometimes overworked illustrations--the incident is just too tenuous and formless to take hold, at this age, as an independent entity.