Review: CINDERELLA, Chichester Festival Theatre
Photo credit: Manuel Harlan
A new re-telling of a much beloved classic, this is the tale of Cinderella. Once upon a time, she had a very happy childhood, adored by both her mother and father and was free to roam the forest as she pleased. Then her mother died and her grief-stricken father remarried a woman who felt threatened by Cinderella’s looks. As Cinderella took to using housework as a method of burying her grief, her stepmother took advantage and turned her into a servant. One day, in despair over what her life had become, she ran into the woods and cried so much that a tree grew, which contained the spirit of her mother…Will Cinderella be able to escape this life and reclaim the freedom and happiness she once had?
This production is part of a tradition of Chichester Festival Youth Theatre Christmas shows which goes back 21 years. CFYT is a charity which brings theatre to areas which may not necessarily have access to theatre and nurtures young talent. They have seven satellite groups across West Sussex, providing acting classes for school children from Years 5-11, taught by industry professionals. In recent years, they’ve added classes in singing, dance, musical theatre and technical theatre.
We enter the main auditorium to see a thrust stage with a structure at the back, which looks like a castle and a factory moulded into one. This, in addition, to the lantern paper houses, which are placed at various points around the circumference of the stage area, give us the sense that we’re about to watch a dark fairytale, something more akin to Brothers Grimm than Disney.
The puppets in the show are gorgeous and the actors’ ability to convincingly portray all sorts of singing birds is consistent. However, it becomes apparent that most of the focus in rehearsals was on puppetry, meaning that the cast performance in other areas is lacking.
The underlying message of the story is supposed to be about grief and the various unhealthy and healthy methods of dealing with it, as well as the things that people do in the heat of emotionally intense moments. A great idea but one which, unfortunately, this show is unable to pull off. There are times when it is clear that the cast don’t quite understand the meaning behind their lines, and other times when it feels like the cast are not fully committing to their roles.
The actor playing the Prince is unable to draw the audience in due to his looking at the floor. His voice also doesn’t match the volume of the actress playing Cinderella. It can be hard performing to an audience as big as the one at CFT, especially at such a young age, so building up confidence in performing to large audiences is definitely something that needs to be worked on prior to hitting the big stage.
The script itself, whilst creative, doesn’t make a lot of sense. Imagination is more believable when the story behind it is able to convince the audience that it is plausible. Having an array of different bird species all living in the same magical tree in the forest feels out of place and a bit bizarre. There is also far too much narration in this piece, most of it is unnecessary because we can clearly see what’s happening on stage, meaning that the piece feels like it underestimates the audience's intellect and ability to understand the story. In places, it seems like the narration is there to allow for a bigger cast, but there are other ways to account for a large cast, especially when writing a fairytale script.
Visually interesting at points but lacking substance.
** Two stars
Reviewed by: Megan O’Neill
Cinderella plays at Chichester Festival Theatre until 31 December, with further info here.