Review: "Cinderella", --Broadway Series

    While most Central Ohioans were glued to the Ohio State/Michigan football game, I ventured out to the Ohio Theater to see The Broadway Series current production of “Cinderella”.

   “Cinderella” is another one of those great old musicals that contains some of Rodgers and Hammerstein’s most beloved and memorable songs including “Impossible”, “Ten Minutes Ago”, “Do I Love You Because You’re Beautiful” and  “A Lovely Night”.

   Technology, stage magic and a little extra fairy godmother happy dust combine to produce thrilling costuming effects.  Cinderella transforms from a country bumpkin in rags to a beautiful princess, on stage, while she is singing – not once; not twice; but three times -- to gasps and thunderous applause from an appreciative audience. 

    The rest of the costuming, acting, dancing, singing, sets, lighting and sound are well executed as is usually the case with any Broadway Series professional production.

   The audience at the Saturday matinee was filled with little girls dressed as Cinderella-like princesses, escorted by their fawning parents and grandparents.  Most of the children were better-behaved than some of the adults who kept checking the their cell phones for the football score. 

   This 2013 adaptation adds some pleasant songs: "Me, Who Am I?” "Now Is the Time", "The Pursuit", "Loneliness of Evening" and "There's Music in You".  The new book by Douglas Carter Beane injects some additional personality traits for several of the characters including the prince and the stepsisters.  It also adds significant political flavoring to the plot. 

   Several reviewers have praised the new adaptation for its wit and wisdom.  I enjoyed the new songs, lines and actions that give Prince “Topher” added depth.  I found the new attitude of stepsister Charlotte, delightfully funny.  But, at the risk of seeming like some narrow-minded, stuck-in-the-mud traditionalist, I confess I think Beane’s attempts to inoculate this classic fairy tale with his particular brand of social commentary and politics in the characters of Jean-Michel and Lord Pinkleton and sketches such as the ridicule game, are phony, gratuitous and annoying. It left a bad taste for what would otherwise have been a light-hearted, uplifting afternoon of classic musical theater.