Brit wit

SFGT's Cinderella is wickedly good fun

by Johnette Rodriguez

CINDERELLA. Directed by David Gardner. With GwynAnderson, Bunny Bronson, Kate Lester, Sandra Mayoh, Laura Sorensen, Barbara McElroy, Alyn Carlson Webster, Nigel Gore, Bill Oakes, Richard Blue, Tom Epstein, Ron Haxton, Lara Hakeem, Rea Mancini, and Mike Zola. At the Sandra Feinstein-Gamm Theatre through December 23.

If you've ever been to England at the holiday season, you may have experienced a "panto," as they have been around for almost 200 years. Quite the opposite of a pantomime, in which action is portrayed silently, the British pantomime is a raucous, vaudevillian piece of entertainment, in which the audience must take part, with greetings, catcalls, hisses, and boos.

Rhode Island audiences being what they are, once they loosened up at the opening night performance of Sandra Feinstein-Gamm Theatre's production of Cinderella, they really got into it, with one fellow in the audience hollering at the villains: "Don't make us come down there!" It's every audience member's wildest dream, to be yelling at the actors. And, judging by the actors' enthusiastic mockery of theatre critics, it fulfilled some of their fantasies as well.

A panto Cinderella is part and parcel of the English tradition, as are panto "dames" played by men -- in this case, Nigel Gore and William Oakes as the ugly stepsisters; and the "principal boy" played by a woman, here Barbara McElroy as Prince Charming. Gamm's version has the fairy godmother also cross-gendered (Richard Blue); the wicked stepmother and husband become the Baroness and Baron Flat-Busted; and the topical references that are integral to the panto appear in Gamm's Cinderella as three Rhode Island hairdressers, assigned to de-uglify the stepsisters.

There aren't enough English words for laughter to describe the audience's responses to this production, nor enough for humor to explain the levels on which it works. Suffice it to say that if you're not a fan of corny jokes and slapstick, stick around: the parody, satire and word-play are worth all the cheap shots. First you have Gore and Oakes in terrible drag, hamming it to the hilt, lifting their fake boobs, kissing critics on their bald spots, telling the ba-da-boom jokes: "I'd like to see something cheap in a dress." Ba-da-boom. "The mirror's right over there."

Then you have the Broadway show tunes, Disney movie songs and Gilbert and Sullivan ditties appearing at strategic moments, sometimes doctored (script doctors were director David Gardiner, Brien Lang, Kevin Mulhern and the cast), sometimes not. Almost predictably, the stepsisters launch into "I Feel Pretty" and the roller-blading fairy godmother into "Bibbidy-Bobbidy-Boo." The King (Tom Epstein) has a tendency to burst into G & S lyrics, while the Queen (Bernice Bronson) rolls her eyes and drags him off-stage.

Contemporary references abound in the conversations between the fairy godmother and her niece Penny, the Special-Assistant Fairy Godmother in Training ("SFGT," muses the FG, "could that be a theater?). Kate Lester is terrific as the mod teen Penny, eager to try out some of Harry Potter's spells. And Blue plays off references to his/her big chest and his/her maleness to great hilarity. Plus, the FG's floating sensation on roller-blades never loses its amusing edge.

Gwyn Anderson is fabulous as Buttons, the emcee, referee, and cheerleader of the whole play. She strikes just the right tone; her facial gestures (especially in the true pantomime behind the stepsisters) are on the -- forgive me -- button; and she even hits the mark of lonely frustration at being Cinderella's friend when she croons a snippet of "Miss Cellophane."

But the most memorable characters of the evening are easily Michael Zola, as Angelo Tease; Lara Hakeem as Bobbi Pinze; and Rae Mancini, as Anita Rinse, the hairdressers lost in Pantoland. "This is wicked strange," ponders Bobbi, when they realize they're no longer in Kansas, "nobody ever leaves Rhode Island!"

The combination of their outfits -- high hair, three-inch dangly earrings, spike heels and a tiger-striped catsuit with leather vest for Bobbi; a black sequined blouse, black silk "panto-loons" and an armful of bangles for Anita; black leather for Angelo -- and their Vo Dilun speech patterns -- Buttons wonders if they are speaking a foreign language and concludes they might have been in an accident -- are funny enough. But the three actors embellish with such expressive body language and eye contact with the audience that the laughs just roll over and over each other. By the time they get to the finger-snapping Jets' song, "Something's Coming," the audience feels like they have had a high-powered workout.

Laura Sorenson as Cinderella and Barbara McElroy as Prince Charming hold down the more serious, moral middle of the play. Sorenson is convincing as the naive, too-sweet slave of her household; McElroy gets across the prince's equally innocent nature.

The entire cast is spit-spot, including Alyn Carlson-Webster as Prince Charming's aide-de-camp Dandini, being pursued by the stepsisters who believe her/him to be the prince; Ron Haxton as the hen-pecked but conniving Baron and Sandra Mayoh as the harridan wife; and Mark McClure as the Chamberlain, sometimes mistaken for the prince, sometimes misspoken as "the chamberpot." That kind of joke.

Director Gardiner had his hands full with this bunch, and he has cracked the whip quite nicely, leaving space for improv and folly, keeping the pace up, bringing it all to its neat conclusion. David J. Tessier quite literally has his hands full, performing all the music and sound effects in the show on keyboard, guitar, and drum machine.

Grab a gang of friends and make a night of it at Cinderella. It's the best example you could give them of a natural high at the holidays.