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After Dark: Can't get her out of our heads
By Brent Hallenbeck
Free Press Staff Writer
So why are we so obsessed with Cinderella?
Why has she been seen in and around Burlington more often this spring
than Howard Dean, who actually lives here and not in the Enchanted
Kingdom or wherever the heck Cinderella calls home?
Cinderella
is in town again this weekend at Burlington City Hall, where Theatre on
a Shoestring is putting on an evening of four one-act comedies, one of
which features the princess herself. The productions opened Thursday in
Contois Auditorium and conclude tonight.
We've seen the gamut
of theatrical Cinderella incarnations in the past few weeks. Lyric
Theatre opted for the familiar Cinderella in the Rodgers and
Hammerstein musical named for her. That's the Cinderella who's
beautiful and graceful and wide-eyed, the one who falls in love with
the perfect man against all odds and lives happily ever after.
St. Michael's College presented Stephen Sondheim's musical "Into the
Woods," which tells the story of what becomes of famous fairy-tale
characters after happily ever after. That Cinderella is still
beautiful, still graceful, still wide-eyed, but she's also a resigned
realist, in that way only a princess can be after her charming prince
turns out to be a philandering cad.
Now, Theatre on a
Shoestring gives us "Cindy and Julie," a one-act play in which
Cinderella and Juliet commiserate in their psychiatrist's waiting room
about what jerks Prince Charming and Romeo turned out to be. "Cindy and
Julie" provides the painstaking post-game analysis of love behaving
badly, debunking any lingering myth that idealized romance is possible.
So, yeah, why are we as a culture -- a theater culture, anyway -- so
obsessed with Cinderella? In the Rodgers and Hammerstein version, does
she represent the quintessential story of the love we all hope to
attain, the love that best sums up human existence? Does Sondheim
create a Cinderella who reminds us of that too-perfect princess we knew
in high school, so we can finally tear her little playhouse down? Does
playwright Bruce Kane give us a "Cindy" who reflects our 21st-century,
been-there-done-that coolness, one who's so cynical and bitter that
there's no room, never will be any room, for love again?
"Happily ever after. What a load of crap," Cindy (played by Blythe
Usher) tells Julie (Jennifer Gelb Carbee) with a voice hard enough to
shatter a glass slipper.
The evening of one-acts includes Kent
Broadhurst's "The Eye of the Beholder," which doles out mounds of
pretentious twaddle in a vain attempt to define art. It also has
nothing in common thematically with "Cindy and Julie" or the other two
thoughtful plays written by Kane.
"Under the Balcony" shows
what might have happened if Casanova (Clem Turmel) got hold of Romeo
(Kevin Bosley) when light through yonder window broke, then applied his
seducing ways to Romeo's pure romantic inclinations. "Prince Charming's
Complaint" is a one-man one-act in which the charming one (Ken LaBrie)
recounts his failed loves with Rapunzel (cut her hair after they
married), Snow White (not so chaste after all, considering those seven
short guys she shacked up with) and Sleeping Beauty (took the sleeping
in "sleeping together" too literally).
"You can't," Prince Charming moans, "make them happy ever after."
By the end of the play, though, he admits he's fallen for another
woman. She's a mysterious, enchanting woman, one who fled at midnight
and left behind a lone glass slipper ...
Prince Charming might not be happy ever after. But there's something to be said for hopeful ever after.
If you go
WHAT: "The Art of Fantasy: An Evening of One-Act Comedies" by Theatre on a Shoestring
WHEN: 7:30 tonight
WHERE: Contois Auditorium, Burlington City Hall
TICKETS: $8
INFORMATION: (888) 212-5884 or www.theatreshoe.com Contact Brent Hallenbeck at 660- 1844 or bhallenb@bfp.burlingtonfreepress.com
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