Reimagining Cinderella: sumptuous, enchanting and high camp
Choreographer Loughlan Prior and composer Claire Cowan - “happiness comes from self-discovery”
Photo credit: Katherine Brook
The current season of a brand-new Cinderella by the Royal NZ Ballet is brilliant, subversive and wonderfully entertaining. A witty and inventive trio, choreographer Loughlan Prior, composer Claire Cowan and designer Emma Kingsbury, has taken one of the world’s best-known fairytales and reimagined the familiar rags-to-riches story to show what “happily ever after” can mean in the 21st century. Their exuberant production has a marvellous “more is more” approach, mashing together all kinds of music, dance and design in a super-collage irreverently combining history and tradition with folk, techno-pop, graffiti, animations and retro computer game elements.
Mayu Tanigaito as Cinderella…finding her own way
Photo credit: Stephen A’Court
All the usual characters are there - Cinderella herself, her ineffectual father, wicked stepmother and narcissistic stepsisters, Prince Charming and his mother the Queen. Cinders has a Fairy Godmother, there are pumpkins, a grand ball, a striking clock and a lost slipper. But Cinderella and the Prince are finding their own way through life and choosing their own lovers. The transformations at the heart of the Cinderella story are here as unexpected as the artistic alchemy of this enchanting production.
Designer Emma Kingsbury - a fantastical collage
Photo credit: Tatsuki Takada
Cowan and Prior, both highly gifted, collaborated successfully a few years ago on Hansel and Gretel for the RNZB. The “cheeky-wink” playfulness in that production ramps up in Cinderella to full-on campy eclecticism, jubilant, unpredictable and naughty. Kingsbury’s designs enhance this spirit which is expressed marvellously through the Stepsisters – they’re not ugly or evil, just rambunctious spoilt brats with too many dopey soft toys, bouncing on their beds, shopping extravagantly and primping ridiculously for the ball.
Sara Garbowski and Kirby Selchow as the Stepsisters - rambunctious spoilt brats
Photo credit: Stephen A’Court
As in Hansel and Gretel, there are darker and more poignant elements lurking alongside the tongue-in-cheek sendups and Cowan’s music slips magically from percussion-heavy modern idioms to traditional romantic strings with exotic folk elements. Cinderella’s Stepmother is of course the real villain. Slinky in red, long cigarette-holder in hand, she conjures Disney’s Cruella de Vil, her intentions and actions malevolent, her music contemporary, angular and sinister.
Ana Gallardo Lobaina as the Stepmother
Photo credit: Stephen A’Court
Cowan has given each main character their own musical theme. Cinderella’s is a four-note motive based on the syllables of her name and contained in a music-box, gifted by her beloved mother. That special box and its music are also associated with the Fairy Godmother’s magic. The Royal Messenger’s theme is a heraldic trumpet, underlaid with rapid harp sounds symbolising his racing heartbeat. Romantic love scenes and touching pas-de-deux between these two and the other lovers, Prince Charming and his heart-throb Prince Dashing, are accompanied by traditional orchestral textures of strings and woodwinds. The Spanish flavours of guitar and occasional castanets add another essence to Prince Charming’s character.
Shae Berney as Prince Dashing and Joshua Guillemot as Prince Charming
Photo credit: Stephen A’Court
Cowan’s score is packed with percussive effects and dramatic colours. Choreographed ensemble pieces are stylish, slick and expressive – the white-clad Swordfighters’ dance in the forest is visually stunning and the arrival of the Fab Five tailors, summoned by the Fairy Godmother to dress Cinderella for the ball, is deliciously reminiscent of Queer Eye high-camp. By the end of Act 1 we’ve got the picture - the family history and dynamics, the pathos of thwarted lovers and the quick-change musical and balletic eclecticism.
Laurynas Vėjalis as the Royal Messenger dances with Cinderella - genuine romance
Photo credit: Stephen A’Court
Act 2 takes us to the ball, and the audience finds itself at an extravagant party, massive chandeliers overhead and a beauty pageant of Eligible Maidens paraded for the unhappy Prince. The Queen is every pushy stage mother you’ve ever met; she eventually thrusts Cinderella into her son’s arms and their awkward, unwilling dance accompanied by lugubrious low woodwinds is a hilarious contrast to the genuinely romantic pas de deux of the other pairs of lovers. Musically the scene has it all, brassy big band outbursts, the thud of techno beats and clever parodies of ballet music from the past.
At the ball - the Stepsisters swing on the chandeliers as the clock strikes 9pm
Photo credit : Stephen A’Court
As the clock strikes each hour on the way to midnight, the layers pile up. At times the percussion seems overheavy and as we move to the story’s romantic denouement and the disco setting at the neon lit ‘Happy Ever After’ nightclub, there are moments when it all feels a bit like one of those over-long parties where the music’s a bit loud, you’ve stayed up too late, danced too long and look forward to heading home. But ultimately a happy party atmosphere prevails in a finale with the all-on-stage quality of a stage musical, morphing into celebratory curtain-calls that allow the audience to express its delight in this joyous, jam-packed and fabulous production. From this week it’s on tour around New Zealand - and if you can find a ticket, capture the spirit of this Cinderella and don’t hold back!
Cinderella Royal New Zealand Ballet Loughlan Prior (choreographer), Claire Cowan (composer), Emma Kingsbury (designer), POW Studios (visual effects) Jeremy Fern (lighting) Hamish McKeich (conductor) Brent Stewart (assistant conductor), Orchestra Wellington. Wellington 3-6 August, Auckland 10-13 August, Napier 20-21 August, Christchurch 25-28 August, Dunedin 3 September. More information and ticketing links here.