It seemed at first that we were destined to not make it to the tasting. Although we’d thought we’d left ourselves plenty of transit time, we managed to get trapped between openings of two of the bridges over Seattle’s Ship Canal and the associated traffic, and then it turned out I’d gotten the location of the Theo factory wrong. When we finally got there, 10 minutes late, the tables were all full and they had no record of our reservation. Fortunately, the organizer took my word for it that we had, indeed, signed up, and told us that we could sit on one of the couches in the back and they would set us up with glasses. And thus we got to have a remarkable tasting experience.

We got to taste five ports, paired with five chocolates. The first was the Fine Selected White Port, paired with a thyme ganache chocolate. (The ganaches are what most people would call “truffles,” but the Theo representative explained that technically, truffles are rolled and enrobed by hand, and their filled chocolates are rectangular and machine-enrobed, so they prefer to call them “ganaches.”) I had never tried white port before; while it definitely has the almost-cloying sweetness of the muscat grape that is one of its ingredients, the other grapes modify that sweetness and make it refreshing and bright. Mr. Symington noted that white ports are generally drunk as aperitifs, and suggested using this one as a long drink (what Americans would call a “spritzer”) with tonic water or sparkling water. I felt that this port would be excellent with green things: crudites (perhaps with a light, tangy dip), or a light greens-based chilled soup, or melon (perhaps with prosciutto, though as a vegetarian I can’t actually state that). Because of this green harmony, the thyme ganache was a very nice complement; thyme is pleasantly green and just a bit sweet, and it harmonized with the brightness of the port and smoothed the bitter edge of the dark chocolate.

The second was the Otima 10-year tawny port, paired with Madagascar 65% cacao chocolate. The color of this port is extraordinary, like liquid amber. The aroma made me swoon even before I tasted it, rich with hints of wood and spice but a little sweet as well. The taste was a beautiful balance of dry and sweet, full in the mouth without being overpowering. It made me want to have it with an aged chevre–it would probably be good with fresh goat cheese as well, but I could really imagine how well it would go with the more mellow, woody flavors of an aged cheese. I found the chocolate a bit of a disappointment; it seemed harsh, slightly “dirty” and overly acidic to me. However, it did bring out peppery notes with the port, which was quite pleasant.

The third was Warre’s Warrior, their signature brand (it’s the oldest port brand in the world), with a 71% cacao chocolate from Cote d’Ivoire. The Warrior is really pretty much what port should be: rich, deep, with a balance of red and sweet flavors against a slightly spicy finish. Whole-grain crackers and a blue cheese (I don’t know what kind, unfortunately; the “blue” flavor was upfront, but mixed with a buttery, smooth texture) were also provided during the tasting, and I tried a little with this port–the combination was wonderful, though it made me crave some walnuts to go along with it. The chocolate, meanwhile, was extremely smooth despite the high cacao content, with a hint of cinnamon on the finish. With the port, it deepened the fruity notes, while the port brought out sweetness in the chocolate.

The fouth tasting was a late bottled vintage paired with a Ghana 84% dark chocolate. LBV port is cask-aged for four years, then bottled and allowed to age in the bottle for several more years. The result of this is a concentration of all the port flavors, with a strong emphasis on dark cherry and wood notes and a pleasant hint of tannins, much richer than the Warrior. We tried this one with the cheese as well, and found it even more perfect for cheese–I could happily sit down with a bottle of this and a selection of blues and make a meal. The chocolate, meanwhile, was intensely cocoa-y, but really nicely balanced between sweet and bitter, with a vague hint of vanilla. I typically don’t like this high a cacao content, but the balance of this one made it quite enjoyable. Combined with the port, it made for an experience of deep woodsy and dark flavors overlaid with the sweetness of dark fruits. We savored both for as long as we could.

The last tasting was a 1985 vintage port with a fig and fennel ganache. I had never expected to taste a vintage port, let alone from the hands of its maker (Mr. Symington decanted this one perosnally), and it was quite an experience. The color of this port is perfectly dark red, no brown or orange, like looking into a perfect ruby. The taste was incredibly complex and not something I can easily describe; there was plenty of fruit, but also a beautiful mix of tannins, and a certain floral quality. My husband and I both agreed that this was a port to drink on its own, not to clutter up with other foods. However, the chocolate did provide a nice complement; the fig gave it a dark depth that matched the depth of the port, and the herbal-liquorice note of the fennel contrasted the richness and gave it a little airiness.

All of the tastings were completely worth the price and the hassle, and we’d have been very happy with those on their own. But what truly made the evening outstanding was the presence of Mr. Symington. He is, of course, well-versed in the process of making port, and he spoke in great detail about the viticulture of port and the aspects of the region where their grapes are grown, and the technical aspects of casking and aging, and this was extremely informative and helped increase our appreciation for the port. I even learned why, in the historical novels I loved in my adolescence, there were references to a “pipe” of wine: It’s derived from the Portuguese word for “barrel.” He’s also very funny; he poked gentle fun at the puffery of many American winemakers who feel the need to justify their presence in the wine world by not acknowledging the existence of wine from other regions, and he had the room roaring when he described the “difficult” years of vintage ports (the stretch of time between the fruitiness of youth and the rich complexity of a proper aging) with a Portuguese expression usually used for adolscent girls and that translates roughly as “the locked-in-the-cupboard years.” (He also apologized for the paternalistic sexism of the expression, but I thought it was hilarious, having been an adolescent girl in my time and knowing the kind of mindset and behavior the expression refers to.) And he noted impishly that he would really like to take some of their 1870 vintage port and pour it over vanilla ice cream, but he fears his brother and cousins (his partners in the business) would disown him if he dared to do it.

In addition to these qualities, however, he has a strong sense of perspective about his responsibility to this business and to the wine. He said that he views himself as the “caretaker” of Warre’s and that it is his responsibility to look after it and make sure it is passed on to people (hopefully his children and nieces/nephews) who will have the same sense of responsibility to it. He can’t just sell it off and skip merrily away with the proceeds, because the weight of heritage that was passed on to him is important for him to maintain. In terms of his responsibility to the wine, he noted that his U.S. distributor has put their 1977 vintage port on the list for this tour he is doing, and he asked them to remove it; the 1977 is in its “difficult” stage, and he felt it would do a disservice to the customers and the port to serve something that would leave the drinker unenthused. This kind of respect for the quality is a lovely thing to see, and his views about his place in the world and the business quite touched us. We made a point at the end of the evening to thank him directly for his time and sharing his knowledge. We consider ourselves very fortunate to have gotten that.

As if all of this wasn’t enough, we were also treated to a brief tour of Theo’s factory at the very end of everything. How many of us had childhood dreams of visiting a chocolate factory? Well, I did, at any rate, and I finally got the chance. Since it was evening, things weren’t running, but we at least got to see all the equipment and hear an overview of their roasting and manufacturing process. This isn’t a big sleek soulless enterprise (yet, anyway); it’s still a small, specialized business that started with more determination than resources, and many of the machines in the factory were purchased second-hand and could even be considered antiques. It was fun to see the spirit they’re after in the color-coding of the process and the charming character of all the older equipment. I’m hoping to go back for an actual tour during operating hours, and perhaps take a group of friends and make an event of it.

As we left and headed home after this remarkable evening, I was profoundly struck by a sense of how wonderful my life is. To have the chance to taste port with its maker and share in his knowledge, to have quirky organic chocolate and see where it’s made–these are things that don’t come along every day, and I’m very, very glad that the chance came to us, and that we took it.

(What follows can be spoilery if you’re unfamiliar with the film.)

Many people I know were surprised to find out that this production is a ballet and not a typical West End/Broadway style musical with big sweeping treacly ballads and rousing group songs, and at least a few were turned off by that. Frankly, I’d have found that style much more off-putting. Edward, while not silent, doesn’t speak much; he doesn’t really know how to talk to others, and his expressions of his emotions and desires are largely physical. Thus, turning his story into ballet, where all the action and emotion is expressed through physical movement, seems ideal to me. I needed no dialogue or story-songs to understand what was going on; the dancing conveyed everything beautifully. And it is, for the most part, beautiful dancing.

The numbers involving Edward and Kim, the perfect blond daughter of the family that takes him in and who he falls hopelessly for, are all sparkling with tenderness and emotion, most particularly the sequence in which the photos of Kim in her cheerleader outfit (the first glimpse Edward gets of her) come to life and dance him to sleep. I’ve rarely seen the delighted joy of first infatuation conveyed with such giddy sweetness. And the fantasy topiary ballet is a thing of sheer genius, both in emotion and in technical achievement. The group numbers can be unwieldy and sometimes do rather go on, but they are great fun to watch; it’s particularly illustrative to pay attention what’s happening around the edges, where little pieces of character and motivation are subtly dropped in with bits of business involving one or two characters outside of the central group dancing. The Christmas party sequence particularly delighted me, both for the sheer fun of the dancing and for how many individual things of import were going on amidst the fun–just like a real party.

I think the highest praise I can give this production is that it manages to be both faithful in the most important ways to its source, and a standout creation of its own. It doesn’t feel like a Burton film transplanted to the stage; it’s more generous to the so-called “normal” characters than Burton was, yet maintains the sense of Edward’s isolation and yearning to be accepted and the sweet melancholy, along with just enough flavor of Burton’s signature visual style to honor him without being slavish. Something that really stood out to me here, and wasn’t conveyed as skilfully in the film, is the way that absolutely good and well-meaning people can nonetheless, and in all innocence, turn the “freaks” into benign circus attractions. The good people of Hope Springs do their best, for the most part, to accept Edward, even to finding a use for his strange disability, and yet they never quite get past being fascinated by what’s different about him, rather than by who he is. The generosity granted to the “normal” characters in this production is what helps play up this contrast so piquantly, and what makes Kim’s attraction to Edward so poignant–she’s the only one who does see him for who he is.There are some changes to the story, some of them certainly understandable for the restrictions of the stage and a story told all in dance, and some of them a little less so. The version here of Edward’s origins is less clear and somewhat less touching than it is in the film, and the opening sequence feels rushed. The event that causes the townspeople to turn against Edward is also kind of rushed and jumbled, and doesn’t carry quite the punch that it should. And due to the sheer number of characters, we often don’t get as much clarity in their motivations as would be nice, particularly the Bible-thumping Evercreeches; we see their objections (and their attractions) to Edward, but their reasons (aside from some rather lazy, knee-jerk Christian references) are muddled and a bit confusing.

Some of the changes, however, are brilliant, and exactly what make this production stand as its own creature and not a slavish reproduction. Making the setting definitively 1950s adds to the “long ago and far away” fable-like quality, along with really sharply outlining the contrast between “normal” and “freak” (and how narrow those definitions can be, when some of the kids are clearly telegraphed in 1950s “juvie” costume and attitudes). Edward’s adventures as a hairdresser are still important to the story, but less drawn-out and fetishized than in the film; this compactness helps emphasize how Edward’s place in the community is strictly tied to what he can offer them. And the general sense of kindness given to all the characters helps make all of the actions more keenly felt and not as simplistic as they can sometimes be in the film. It’s very, very easy to hate Jim in the film. It’s not quite as simple in this production, which deepened the melancholy for me.

And the things that were kept–including sections of Danny Elfman’s score for the places where their emotional impact matters most, and the ice angel, and the final scene between Edward and Kim even though it’s a pas de deux and not dialogue–are exactly the things that should have been kept. They’re Bourne and his collaborators acknowledging what in the film worked perfectly and honoring the inspiration that gave. Adapting something that already exists and is already beloved is a big challenge, and some adapters react to that by throwing away critical elements to put their own stamp on the work. Bourne realized he didn’t need to do that here, and it’s part of what makes the entire production so lovely.

Visually and technically, there’s not a thing about this that I could complain about. The stagecraft is ingenious, conveying scope and emotion and tone without relying heavily on massive set pieces; the scene changes are swift and compact, and the set contains just what it needs to get the point across. The use of scrims and lighting (and judicious placement of snow machines) is also ingenious, and I spent a fair amount of time marveling at how much wonder can still be achieved by such technically simple means even in this age of CGI. The costuming and craftsmanship is gorgeous; Edward, of course, is a marvel, as are the topiary dancers, but even the more “normal” costumes are not just pretty to look at but contain bits of character in them, such as the Grubbs all in matching, vaguely tacky prints, and the perfectly doll-like Cissy Monroe, and Mrs. Upchurch who has color-coordinated gloves for everything, even her bathing costume.

I have no fault with the performers, either. It’s somewhat difficult to give names for this performance, as the cast is comparatively small for the number of roles contained and nearly everyone doubles up and trades off on characters, so I’m not always certain who played which role in the performance we saw or if I’ve gotten the names right. I believe Sam Archer was Edward for this performance; while he lacks the heartbreaking sense of fragility that Johnny Depp gave Edward in the film, he beautifully communicates the confusion and yearning, as well as a sense of resolve that the film’s Edward didn’t always show. Kim in the film has always been its biggest weakness for me, underwritten and further straitened by Winona Ryder’s oddly flat, screechy performance; here, however, she is much more sympathetic and believable, particularly in her interactions with Jim. Michela Meazza as Joyce is brilliant, weirdly malevolent even within the context of being one of the story’s villains; there’s something insectlike about her movement and performance, the sense of a praying mantis searching for a mate (and of course we all know what female mantises do to their mates). And I found myself with a real soft spot for Shelby Williams as Marilyn-Ann Evercreech; she’s like a Wednesday Addams that nobody ever listened to, and her almost offhand yearnings for Edward, despite knowing how wrong they are, are both funny and a little pathetic. The rest of the cast was excellent, fine dancers and comedians all, but these were the standouts for me.

For both of us, the performance ended with a perfectly-placed fall of snow and honestly-earned tears. Everything that we valued in the story was there, and many things that added enormously to it were there as well. We couldn’t have asked for more.

Since I really hate ridiculous responses in myself, it’s time to get back on track.  This is as much a reminder to myself to get this going again as it is an apology.  So, worthwhile content within the week.  Really.