"I don't see why everybody is laughing" my 10 year old Great-Niece Juliet replied when I asked how she was enjoying the tedious mounting of the Rodgers And Hammerstein (yes, the "doe a deer" guys) 1957 TV musical of "Cinderella", Me neither.
Cinderella is an oft told tale dating back to 1bc where an eagle stole a young girls slipper and left it with the King, who went in search of the girl it would fit. But Charles Perrault’s 1697 is the standard text–you know evil step thingies, etc, and Disney is the look we assume.
The version at the Broadway Theater has a middling Rodgers And Hammerstein score (NOBODY WAS LEAVING THE SHOW SINGING “Do-A-Deer”), some terrible casting with the hard boiled Laura Osnes (much better as Bonnie Parker last year) as Ella and Santino Fontana as the sophomoric named Prince Topher. Between the two of them, they have all the chemistry of congealed milk: never have a Prince and Princess wannabe done less to light up a stage. They are both pros, both sing well, but it is an anemic dryness with the harsher Ella.
I vastly, VASTLY preferred the ugly step-sister (not the nice one –I know, don’t blame me, I didn’t do the re-write) , Charlotte as portrayed by Ann Haraday would be the catch of the day for any half way normal person. Whether sassing the in disguise Prince or Sneering at the glass slipper (“Well, it obviously isn’t mine”) or, in a show stopping “Charlotte’s Lament” with other girls not picked by the Prince at the ball. Charlotte rubs her aching feet and gets more earned sympathy in one song than Ella does in the entire show. “Why can’t a fella ever once prefer a solid girl like me?” Charlotte wonders. “With very little trouble, I could break her little arm…”
Along with “I Just Suppose” and “A Lovely Night” the songs save the second act in a way that the First Act isn’t saved at all. This is not major Rodgers And Hammerstein by any stretch of the imagination, but it is R&H, and Laura Osnes has none of the charm of Julie Andrews, but who can live with such a comparison? No one would survive it. Just wait till Carrie Underwood gets done with The Sound Of Music, you’ll be wishing the Nazis had caught em.
It might have been a mediocre musical theater experience, which, if your fantasy life took you in that direction might have been quite pleasant… until you realize it is never ever going to end. In what amounts to malicious teasing, there are two Balls in this show, so after the first one you think you are nearing the finishing line without realizing you are nearing half time. With another hour of absolute nonsense filler about giving the peasants their land back (it works as a sop to male and female equality, really must everything be rewritten to appease women?) it never ends. It goes on and on and on…
The staging is shabby, the choreography Junior High, tickets costing about as much as any show on Broadway yet, you can’t see the money anywhere. What did they spend it on? The fake trees? Say what you will about “Spiderman”, at least you can see the money.
And the rewrite? Every idea is awful beyond belief. The jokes are all very Pixar nudge to the parents without being at all amusing.
The singing is tedious and professional and so is the orchestra, this is a passionless drag and though both my niece (who is 40 years old) and my Great Niece (who is 10 years old) liked it, I bet they can’t name one song.
A shallow, lugubrious failure, it won’t last a year.
My Nieces Grade: B+
My Grade: D