This Cinderella spins a somewhat non-traditional yarn
by George Logan
It's damn tough for thespians to take a fairy tale seriously. The original story of Cinderella, for example, offers little character development, no inner conflict, and an unartistic happy ending. Even Abigail Crabtree, director of Clarence Brown Theatre's new production of Rodgers and Hammerstein's musical version of the story, admits as much in the liner notes. At first, she says, "the fairy tale of the beautiful young lady who meets her beautiful prince and lives in a beautiful castle happily ever after did not inspire me creatively."
Crabtree's production of the tale makes several concessions to the artist with lots of singing and carefully choreographed dancing—plus a surprise, an ambiguous ending.
It also opens with a surprise, a circus scene (featuring posters for the Sells Brothers Circus, a popular Victorian-era circus that often played in Knoxville). A dispirited young woman is cleaning up around the circus, resisting the flirtations of an especially goofy clown. She doesn't speak until we enter the story of Cinderella by way of her dream. From the beginning, the production is a dreamlike spectacle of clown-faced dancers, carrying on the circus motif; later, at the ball, they wear masks, seeming to convey the menace of approaching midnight. (In a peculiar explanatory essay, the director herself offers her own theory about why she gave her actors "masques," but I'm not sure I buy it.)
In any case, Jennifer Richmond is an appealing Cinderella, at once demure and confident, and a fine singer. Her step-family is more funny than wicked: Leigh Allison Price is hilarious as the Betty Boop-ish Joy, and Ashley Kemp is her overlarge sister Portia, who's something like a Valley Goil from Joizy with half-formed dreams of becoming a lawyer.
Dan Owenby contributes to the light spirits as a cartoonishly absent-minded king, Stephen J. Smith is a plausible Prince Charming, and a well-rehearsed company of dancers perform some impressive old-fashioned ensemble pieces.
Even if you've never seen a version of Rodgers and Hammerstein's Cinderella, you'll likely recognize a few of its songs, like "Do I Love You Because You're Beautiful" (which makes more sense in context) and "In My Little Corner."
To its credit, Clarence Brown is never content with playing a famous story straight, and this production is full of twists. One is an additional character. When you want to improve a musical play by adding a character without rewriting the script, you'd better come up with a character that doesn't talk or sing. And I'm sorry, but that would pretty much have to be a mime.
Never explained, he appears early in the play and accompanies Cinderella whenever she appears. Whether he's an imaginary friend or a guardian angel or her own spirit is unclear, but he seems the perfect friend, sad when she's sad, happy when she's happy, looming around all the characters doing modern-dance interpretations of their words and feelings. He also hoists the huge, pneumatic moon that shines over the ball scene (I understand it got out of hand and popped on Friday night, something I would like to have seen, just for the spectacle of it.)
Though the mime's face is empathetic and the concept is intriguing, the physical guy is often distracting, and nearly spoils a couple of otherwise poignant or funny scenes. Always spot-lit, he tends to move a good deal more than Cinderella does as if interpreting for the deaf or doing some sort of aggressive version of tai chi.
The 10-year-old girl sitting next to me muttered, "That clown's getting on my nerves."
It may have been a minority opinion. At the curtain call, the mime (John Ramsey, Jr.) got a swell of applause, maybe more than any other actor.
Another problem, the night I saw it, was the sound. All of the actors were fitted with epidermal microphones that were practically painted on their faces, camouflaged by makeup.
In my opinion, that's a crummy way to do a musical, especially one that's done in a relatively intimate auditorium like Clarence Brown. All the speaking and singing was amplified from speakers high above the stage. As a result, we hear every word, but also every ruffle. While unsettling, the effect gave me a peculiarly nostalgic feeling that I wasn't able to nail down until it was nearly intermission. It reminded me of watching drive-in movies when I was a kid. There's the actor, right there, but here's his voice, coming from the speaker over there.
Furthermore, the instrumental music also came mainly from high-mounted speakers, giving it a canned quality. Though I could see the top of a stand-up bass in the orchestra pit, I first assumed that he was just accompanying music that was on a recording. I was surprised to get up and look down into the orchestra pit and see there really were nearly a dozen musicians down there, enough to be making all the music themselves.
Because the effect was considerably improved after intermission, it may just have been an opening-night glitch. Still, I'd much rather hear my actors without amplification, even if I missed a word every now and then when they were twirling.
The play's conclusion, a surprise, is a little curious, not to say weird. And, though artistic, it ends almost happily, in a provisional sort of way, if not promising much about ever after.
However, those planning to bring the kids should rest assured. They'll enjoy it, whether or not the mime gets on their nerves.
November 23, 2000 * Vol. 10, No. 47
© 2000 Metro Pulse
| 
