[NEohioPAL] Review of "Cinderella" at Playhouse Square

[Bob Abelman via NEohioPAL]

The slipper fits for touring, storybook telling of ‘Cinderella’   



Bob Abelman

Cleveland Jewish News, The News Herald, The Morning Journal

Member, International Association of Theatre Critics



The making of the Broadway musical “Rodgers + Hammerstein’s Cinderella” is a bit of a fairytale story in itself.



Once there was an enchanting actress known as Julie Andrews, who was seeking a star vehicle for a new medium called television.  Taking an ancient folktale of European origin, which had since been sanitized and transformed into an animated film by a mouse called Disney, corporate executives at CBS conjured a new script about the young woman forced into a life of servitude by her cruel stepmother.  And they commissioned a new score from the legendary songsmiths Oscar Hammerstein II and Richard Rodgers.  



Simply staged for the small screen, the live broadcast of “Cinderella” reached over 100 million viewers in 1957, was revived in 1965 (starring Lesley Ann Warren) and again in 1997 (featuring Brandy, with Whitney Houston as the fairy godmother).  The musical remained relatively dormant for a decade until it was reimagined for the Broadway stage by playwright Douglas Carter Beane.



Beane revisited French author Charles Perrault’s early interpretation of the story and worked in some modern-day sensibilities as well.  



The result offers a courageously kind and occasionally sassy Cinderella who rescues the floundering Prince – now an orphan whose leadership is being undermined by the scheming Lord Protector, Sebastian – as much as he rescues her.  



Also in this version, the evil step-mother and step-sisters are more human and humorous, with step-sister Gabrielle depicted as a sympathetic character in love with a political radical seeking better treatment for the poor.  



Additional songs are introduced that have been lifted from other Rodgers and Hammerstein scores and scattered throughout this production.  



The new “Cinderella” opened in midtown Manhattan in 2013 and ran for nearly two years with reviews that either found the glass slipper half full or half empty.  The national tour of the show, which began in 2014, has just stopped at Playhouse Square to cast its spell over local theatergoers.  



For the rest of this review, go to www.clevelandjewishnews.com/columnists/


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