The New York Times: Midway through Andrew Lloyd Webber’s new “Cinderella,” the male ensemble throws itself into a thrusting, muscle-popping number that perfectly illustrates the musical’s fictional setting of Belleville, a town devoted to beauty in all its superficial forms. It’s also laugh-out-loud hilarious, a sly take on an objectification more usually embodied by a female chorus, and a witty amplification of the musical’s reimagining of the Cinderella myth.
1 comment:
The work of JoAnn M Hunter, especially on the revival of Cinderella, feels like a perfect example of the theater's new age. Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Cinderella is a show that exemplifies the flashy, white-centric, era of mega musicals that began in the eighties and only began to slow down recently, though only the sets and scope have changed, most large musicals are still mostly white people. What Hunter and the creative team have made out of the bones of Cinderella represents the bridge between the past and future of theater, with the inclusion of people of color and a myriad of different perspectives beside that of the original white creators. There are those who say that theater can’t change too far from its “rich history,” but this production proves to them that the past can be woven into the tapestry of the future. There is room, in the coming future of theater, for altogether new pieces but the alteration of past pieces can also be effective at making positive change.
Post a Comment