![]() “Acne is a misdemeanor/ cellulite is banned.” “Wrinkles are not tolerated, torsos must be tanned,” they decree, smizing to the back row. Clad in a psychedelic fever dream of sexed-up Ancien Regime silhouettes (by costume and set designer Gabriela Tylesova), they are shallow, dumb and single-mindedly obsessed with being hot. You could hardly expect the townspeople of Belleville, who introduce themselves in a gyrating opening number called “Buns ‘n’ Roses/ Beauty Is Our Duty,” not to be juiced up and ready to cavort. 'Promising Young Woman' Oscar-Winner Emerald Fennell Helped Write 'John Wick' Spinoff Starring Ana de ArmasĪndrew Lloyd Webber Booed After Calling His 'Cinderella' Musical a 'Costly Mistake' During Final Curtain Callīut it is also very horny, which is its primary claim to fun. Grant, Archie Madekwe and Alison Oliver Join Emerald Fennell's 'Saltburn' “Bad Cinderella,” directed here by Laurence Connor (“ School of Rock”), even manages to gleefully reinforce the chronic social fixations - on beauty, vanity and wealth - that it purports to deem toxic. The book, originally written by Emerald Fennell, the Oscar winning screenwriter of “ Promising Young Woman,” and adapted for Broadway by the playwright Alexis Scheer, is an illogical head-scratcher, despite being based on a story most everyone knows. Composed by Webber and with lyrics by David Zippel, it is a muddled and momentum-less retooling of the familiar fairy tale in search of a coherent point of view as if it were a glass-slippered foot. To clear up the obvious question, “Bad Cinderella,” which opened at the Imperial Theater Thursday night, isn’t good. Was it preemptive self-defense against Broadway reviews like this one, that would apply aesthetic judgment to the musical’s gauche bonanza of too-muchness? Would its version of Cinderella be - you know, a bad girl, but in a sexually liberated (and feminist!) way? Or was it a rare bit of truth in advertising? ![]() The addition of “bad” to the title of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s latest maximalist spectacle, formerly known simply as “Cinderella” when it premiered for a short-lived run on the West End in 2021, would seem like a cleverly self-conscious move.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |