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.
Once again, a new musical falls afoul to the dilemma of trying to cash in on the box office appeal of a beloved family title with that all-important “pre-awareness,” while not wanting to appear bound to outmoded tradition. Sure, you can blow up “Cinderella.” It’s a free country and the glass slippers are in the public domain. But the story was already subversive before being messed with. “Cinderella,” the un-bad one, is more than just a title and a brand; it’s the sort of folk tale rooted in class discrimination that has been around since ancient Greece for goodness sake, with versions emerging in Vietnam, China and Italy, among others — even if Charles Perrault added the most familiar elements, and then, of course, Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II musicalized all that. Rather delightfully so, too. Sigh.
What do all these versions have in common? An obscure and self-effacing commoner marries into royalty. “Cinderella” is an aspirational piece, a fantasy, something to grow into and then rapidly out of, as fairy godmothers become scarce and the power structures of reality stomp out so many of our dreams.
The first problem with “Bad Cinderella” is the title. Not exactly bait for parents with kids. The second is that Cinderella, rebelliously played by Linedy Genao as if she were performing an amped-up version of the lead in “Juno,” is not an unknown who is stuck in the scullery and performs only for the birds. Au contraire. She has a Stepmother (Carolee Carmello) and two safely non-ugly sisters, played by Sami Gayle and Morgan Higgins. But Cinderella herself is, well, bad, as per the title. At rise, she’s already a notorious figure who goes around town defacing statues and committing other mildly scandalous things.
Nonetheless, she already knows a Prince, Sebastian (Jordan Dobson). Now, he’s not Prince Charming (that would be Cameron Loyal), the studly elder son of the Queen (Grace McLean). But Sebastian is the cooler dude, or at least it seems that way for much of the show, but they’re still pals and presumably could exit stage right at any time without the aid of the Fairy Godmother (now just Godmother, played by Christina Acosta Robinson), coach, horses, or any of the other elements of the “Cinderella” nomenclature.
At one point toward the end of the show, Cinderella starts obsessing over her desire to be free. “When were you not free?” you ask yourself. “It’s not like we saw you scrubbing floors.”
Frankly, it feels to me like Fennell was far more influenced by the dysfunctional British royals than by any omni-cultural fairy tale. There’s a good bit of Meghan in Cinderella, at least as seen on “South Park,” and of Harry in the bland and vulnerable Sebastian, who even hints at being the “spare.” That would cast Prince Charming as William and, well the analogy works well until the end, and I wouldn’t want to give away the elder brother’s deus ex machina choices.
Lloyd Webber has penned a self-defining title number, which is catchy and belted out by Genao with genuine chops. There are a couple of ballads that his fans (which will always include me) should enjoy, and a few moments of that signature Lloyd Webber wall of sound (eat your heart out, Phil Spector). But, along with JoAnn M. Hunter’s choreography, in a few places, that’s about all this pretty terrible show has on its list of positives.
For much of the time, it feels like you are watching a show performed on the wrong set down the street: the design from Gabriela Tylesova has lots of Cinderella-y squiggly bits but it all looks off, somehow. Just like the attempts at comedy.
At the top of the show, you think you’ve landed in Belle’s village in “Beauty and the Beast,” but then you get a song called, I kid you not, “Buns and Roses,” dedicated to the notably buff townspeople-dancers’ rear ends. Those guys all were very game to do this and one can only hope their checks continue to clear.
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“Bad Cinderella” plays at the Imperial Theatre, 249 W. 45th St., New York; badcinderellabroadway.com
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