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NEW YORK – Once Upon a Time was a Broadway musical with the understated charm of Chippendales and the carefree finesse of “The Bachelor.” And it was unintentionally titled Bad Cinderella.
What is a good “Cinderella”? Well, not one in which the look-obsessed townsfolk of Belleville sing about Bad Cinderella (Linedy Genao) not wearing beauty pageant dresses and makeup—and then she emerges a few minutes later, all dapper. Or where her fairy godmother makeover includes silver locks that give her the look of an X-Men: The Last Stand character. Or that shows a performance by Prince Charming (Cameron Loyal) that is 90 percent pecs.
We have a small carriage load of Broadway Cinderellas to compare against the version concocted by composer Andrew Lloyd Webber and Co. in Bad Cinderella, which officially opens at the Imperial Theater on Thursday night. (David Zippel and Emerald Fennell are the lyricists and book authors.) Two others, the Cinderellas of the recently completed “Into the Woods” and the upcoming “Once Upon a One More Time,” previously in DC, mean the carriages await Pumpkins could be double parked all over Midtown Manhattan.
“Bad Cinderella” is the cheesiest and grittiest of them all. Beefcake is the special of the day in fairytale Belleville, where shirtless men gather around the Queen (Grace McLean) like dancers in a Madonna music video. Aside from the polished wickedness of Carolee Carmello as the evil stepmother, the Laurence Connor-directed and JoAnn M. Hunter choreographed production is one pandering, overheated conceit after another. The film music of Lloyd Webber and Zippel has an all too predictable supply of power ballads. Even the musical’s supposed moral that looks aren’t everything makes no sense when the actress portraying Cinderella is undeniably beautiful to begin with.
King Charles needed a coronation song. He summoned Andrew Lloyd Webber.
The show heralds a peculiar springtime on Broadway, in which a play slated to begin in April, “Room,” starring Tony-winner Adrienne Warren (“Tina”), closes abruptly in rehearsals and a smashing revival of Bob Fosse’s ” Dancin’” officially opened at the Music Box Theatre.
“Dancin'” unfolds as promised: it’s a revival of the anthology of Fosse choreography, which was a hit the first time around and ran 1,774 performances from 1978 to 1982. Wayne Cilento, an original cast member of “A Chorus Line” who has gone on to a career as a director and choreographer, took on the task of recreating Fosse’s sensual style. He has recruited a nimble corps that both sings and dances. But somehow this choppy compilation show feels dated. It’s more of a drizzle than noise.
A fun, sprawling homage to New York City in Act 1 gives way to some oddly tin-eared sequences in Act 2, including an arcing interlude called “The Female Star Spot,” built around Dolly Parton’s “Here You Come Again” and going kerplunk. And a patriotic medley that follows, featuring “When Johnny Comes Marching Home” and “Yankee Doodle Dandy,” is as perfunctory as a mediocre college halftime show.
I would still watch “Dancin'” a dozen times more than have to sit through “Bad Cinderella” all over again. The go-for-broke silliness constantly immerses the show in youthful antics (though thankfully its rudeness isn’t profane). The creative team could have taken a lesson from & Juliet, a much more pleasantly effervescent British import two blocks away, carried by the pop songbook by Max Martin and others.
It is the difference in free-running rages between delightful departure and despair. One sympathizes with the talented souls at sea in Bad Cinderella, including Genao, whose Cinderella is plagued by a case of character incongruity: after defiantly destroying the town’s new statue of Prince Charming, she returns to a life where… she sweeps her stepmother’s floors. You wonder why everyone is after her for being bad; she’s actually quite cooperative.
Jordan Dobson is lovable as Charming’s younger brother Sebastian, and Sami Gayle and Morgan Higgins are suitably shrill in the usual scathing stepsister roles. On such a haphazard evening, one kind of wishes the makeover skills of Christina Acosta Robinson’s fairy godmother had been more focused on the author’s room.
Evil Cinderella, music by Andrew Lloyd Webber, lyrics by David Zippel, book by Emerald Fennell. Directed by Laurence Connor. Choreography, JoAnn M. Hunter; Set design and costumes, Gabriela Tylesova; Lighting, Bruno Poet; Ton, Gareth Owen. With Tregoney Shepherd, Ben Lanham. About 2½ hours. At the Imperial Theater, 249 W. 45th St., New York. telecharge.com.
Dance, Choreography by Bob Fosse. Direction and musical production Wayne Cilento. Set, Robert Brill; costumes, Reid Bartelme and Harriet Jung; Lighting, David Grill; Ton, Peter Hylenski; Video, FinnRoss; Orchestrations, Jim Abbott; new music and dance arrangements, David Dabbon; Musical Director, Justin Hornback. About 2½ hours. At the Music Box Theater, 239 W. 45th St., New York. telecharge.com.
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