“Cindy Bella or The Glass Slipper”

Posted by Gail M. Burns - December 2009

This is another fine mess you’ve gotten us into, Irina Brook. The tradition of taking a classic folktale and running roughshod over it with topical songs and comedy is a venerable one. In Britain it is called The Panto and it is the annual theatrical holiday “treat” for the whole family. If you hurry VERY FAST you catch a good one at the Ghent Playhouse. If you haven’t already seen the 2009 Panto at Ghent however, don’t waste your time and money going to Shakespeare & Company this week. Brook and Anna Brownsted’s Cindy Bella or The Glass Slipper is neither a Panto nor very funny.

On the plus side I will say that it is slightly better than her DISASTEROUS “adaptation” of The Canterville Ghost last fall, and I refer you to my review of that production for a long dissertation on why Brook’s is a bad fit for Shakespeare & Company. I am fully aware that she was awarded a Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres (the French equivalent of the British Knighthood) by the French Ministry of Culture, and all I can add to that is that the French like Jerry Lewis and snails too.

Brook cites her work on Giachomo Rossini’s 1817 Cinderella opera La Cenerentola as an inspiration for Cindy Bella which explains why here our heroine’s name is Angelina and she has a wicked stepfather instead of a stepmother. The fairy godmother role is filled by Alidora (Renée Margaret Speltz), who is a male, Alidoro, in Rossini’s work, but gender aside s/he is “a philosopher and tutor to the Prince. Brook has turned her into a Hindu magician. It is perfectly plausible that an Italian prince would have an Indian advisor, but the clash of cultures is confusing. The Magnifico family run a bar/pizzeria, but both acts end with big Bollywood-style numbers and Cindy/Angelina and the Prince have an Indian wedding. There is also a Christmas tree on stage and the “wedding march” is Silent Night.”

Brook has included lots of music, ranging from grand opera to Mr. Sandman. Heather Fisch, the actress playing Cindy/Angelina is an accordionist, and she repeatedly accompanies herself in an aria from Puccini’s Gianni Schicchi (1918). Ben Luxon, who plays Don Magnifico, the stepfather, sings an operatic aria at one point that is absolutely inscrutable. Luxon prudently retired from his opera career after a hearing loss, so I can’t imagine why he agreed to attempt to sing here, or why Brook forced him to perform a long dramatic aria in an inscruitble foreign language (I think it was Italian) in a children’s show.

In pre-opening interviews, Brook stated that she liked stories where bad people turn good. The bad people in this story are clearly Don Magnifico and his daughters Clorinda (Dana Harrison) and Thisbe (Caley Milliken). And so this show is all about them. Brook and Brownsted are not really interested in Cindy/Angelina or Prince Ramiro (Scott Renzoni), which is a great pity because they are the quiet, interesting people.

Brook and her actors developed this work improvisationally (it had two “open dress rehearsal” performances at Shakespeare & Company last December) and Milliken and Harrison have been encouraged and allowed to run amok. Their characters are perpetually whining, shrieking harridans who NEVER sit still and NEVER shut-up.

Anyone who seriously creates comedy knows that what is fall-off-your-chair-hilarious to you, personally, or to your small creative group, is rarely as hilarious, or even funny, to an audience. Brook and Brownsted have allowed WAY too much of Milliken and Harrison’s improvised hi-jinks into the finished script. This show runs two hours (including an intermission) when it could and should come it at about 75 minutes with no intermission.

The “comic relief,” as if any such thing was needed, comes from the character of Dandini (David Joseph) the Prince’s servant. He is easily recognizable as a stock operatic character. In this version and Rossini’s, the Prince and Dandini switch identities on their first visit to the Magnifico family so that the Prince can observe the daughters. Again, Brook and Brownsted have incorporated WAY too much of Joseph’s improvised schtick into the final script. He is just has relentlessly noisy and hyperactive as the step-sisters, but at least his voice is of a lower, less grating pitch.

Here’s an annoying loose end: During his early visit to Bar Magnifico, the Prince meets all three sisters, and likes Cindy/Angelina the best. Of course he doesn’t recognize her when she comes, enchanted, to the ball, but everyone remarks on how much the beautiful stranger looks like grimy old Cindy. So why, when she flees at midnight, doesn’t he take the discarded slipper and immediately go and ask for her at the bar? Why bother to search the kingdom and force every woman in the land to attempt to cram her foot into Cindy/Angelina’s shoe, (Which, incidentally, isn’t glass at all but a kind of Ked’s Grasshopper with some sequins glued on)? No wonder Cindy/Angelina doesn’t want to try the shoe on when it is finally proffered. Who knows what icky germs now lurk within?

And here’s another annoyance: If Brook and Brownsted’s interest lies in seeing bad people redeemed, why are we not shown their epiphany? The Magnifico family clearly understands that Cindy/Angelina’s forgiveness is their only escape from poverty and incarceration, but they never show any remorse or understanding of their wrongs. Apparently they just live off of the royal couple’s largess for the rest of their lives, which means they win and Cindy/Angelina comes off looking dumb as a rock.

Fisch, making her Shakespeare & Company debut, is easily the most intriguing and engaging performer on the stage. She looks and acts as if she belongs in another show altogether, and I wish I had seen that one. Fisch is petite and wide-eyed, reminiscent of the young Leslie Caron who played similar Cinderella-type roles to perfection. And she is quiet. I don’t think Brook and Brownsted give their title character more than two dozen lines in the whole play. But since every other person on the stage is charging around screaming at the top of their lungs, her silence is truly golden. To quote my very favorite Christmas carol:

“O hush the noise, ye men of strife,
And hear the angels sing!”

- Edmund Sears, It Came Upon the Midnight Clear

The best parts of this show come when the quiet people – Cindy/Angelina, Prince Ramiro, and Alidora – hold sway. In those moments I can see the Irina Brook who has won all those awards. She has created a tender, magical world of love and mystery that reaches into the deep core of the collective unconscious from which the Cinderella story springs. At the opening of the show, Alidora comes to the bar, where Cindy/Angelina is working alone, disguised as a beggar and delivers a basket containing several oranges and a copy of Bruno Bettelheim’s The Uses of Enchantment which is subtitled “The Meaning and Importance of Fairy Tales.” I have no doubt that Brook has read and cherished that book, and I wish she had used her authorial and directorial hand to put more enchantment into “Cindy Bella” in place of the silly improvised chaos that she has allowed to predominate.

No one is credited with the versatile and colorful costumes – racks of which remain on stage at all times in Ralph T. Randle’s set. Cindy/Angelina’s transformation from waitress to princess is simply and beautifully executed, and one of the most heartfelt laughs of the night comes when Dandini tells the beautiful stranger at the ball that she looks “like a little Oreo cookie” and expresses a desire to dunk her in milk.

John Elder has designed effective lighting for a show that moves rapidly both physically and emotionally.

Of the four holiday shows I have reviewed Cindy Bella with a top ticket price of $34 (there ARE many discounts available, see below), is overpriced compared to the Panto – Puss in Boots or A Tale of Two Kitties – at Ghent ($15) and King Island Christmas at NYSTI ($20), both of which are vastly superior shows and much better choices for holiday family entertainment. For an additional dollar, Disney’s Beauty and the Beast at Cohoes ($35) gives solid value for the investment with splendid costumes and a coherent, neatly packaged version of a classic folktale.

This is my last review for 2009, and I wish my final word on the struggling Shakespeare & Company could have been about the splendid Hound of the Baskervilles and not this drek. Why didn’t the company just keep that hilarious (and lucrative) production running through the holidays?

To see photos of the 2009 production click HERE.

To see photos of the 2008 workshop production, click HERE.

Cindy Bella (or The Glass Slipper) plays in Shakespeare & Company‘s Founders’ Theatre for a limited run of 11 shows, December 10 through December 20. Founders’ Theatre is wheelchair-accessible.
The show runs two hours with one intermission and is suitable for everyone who enjoys two hours of uninterrupted shrieking.

All seating is by general admission. There are several applicable discounts, including discounts for Berkshire residents, teachers, active duty military personnel, Senior Citizens, and students. The popular Family Thursdays discount, introduced for The Hound of the Baskervilles, is continuing as well: on December 10 and December 17, tickets for families or groups of four to six people are $15 each and tickets for families or groups of seven to ten people are $10 each.

As a special bonus, all orders placed by November 20 will receive 20% off! (Discounts cannot be combined. When more than one applies, Box Office staff will apply the discount that yields the largest savings for the ticket buyer.) For more info, details about discounts, or to order tickets, contact the Box Office at (413) 637-3353 or boxoffice@shakespeare.org, or visit our Web site at www.shakespeare.org.

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