As you settle into your seat at Broadway’s “Bad Cinderella,” the subtle sound of piped-in birdsong greets you. Enjoy it while you can. The next few hours will be a frantic onslaught.
The show that opened Thursday at the Imperial Theatre is a hyped-up, over-caffeinated fractured fairy tale that loses its way in the forest and wastes some of the nicest melodies Andrew Lloyd Webber has written in decades. It’s lewd and smugly arch and increasingly tiresome.
