NEW YORK — “Bad Cinderella” says it all.
Why, one wonders aplenty as one watches, did such a distinguished personage of the musical theater as the incomparable Andrew Lloyd Webber choose to spend some of his precious remaining time on Earth on a musical updating of a beloved fairy tale that (a) has no demonstrable respect whatsoever for the dramaturgical structure of the source, and (b) comes with a crass and mostly tasteless sense of humor that feels woefully out of sync with the moment.
It’s like everyone involved here tried to get down with the high school kids and what they’re thinking these days but Lloyd Webber, writers Emerald Fennell and Alexis Sheer and lyricist David Zippel, even the typically excellent director Laurence Connor, whose “Les Miserables” was better than excellent, all end up looking like nervous chaperones telling pandering jokes at prom, proving only that they can’t buy a laugh.
