Let's Talk About Bad Cinderella

 Last year I did a retrospective on all things Cinderella, from Disney to Rodger's And Hammerstein to the only version I truly love starring Brandi and Whitney Houston. One I covered via cast album was Andrew Llyod Webber's take on the classic tale has now come stateside from its run on the West End. And this show is getting dragged through the mud. I often don't talk gossip, news, or current events because I do not want my content to date aside from the Tony Awards, but this can not be ignored. 

This show has been facing nothing short of criticism, whether it is due to the shows content, the music itself or the behind the scenes drama that could take multiple posts just to cover. This show is not getting the kindest of welcomes in a time where musical theater is more successful on tour and in the local scene. Oddly right now musicals are thriving more outside New York then in the very city many associate the genre with. Theater after theater has grown vacant and more theaters than ever have no shows to house, even with the large number of shows going on there are announcements of even more closings. With that we need a show that will help make the area boom again and draw people in. This is not that show.

I listened to the album last year when I  was doing the series on Cinderella and I have to say between that album and the Amazon Prime Cinderella I had my work cut out for me. Going to the Wikipedia page and reading through the plot made my head spin. It was hard to follow, had to many story lines and the songs looked like they were slapped in random places. The songs when I listened to them after trying to use the plot as a companion piece still did not land well with me. Some were okay but others felt out of place and the tone was constantly changing between songs. The music was hit and miss and I felt myself grasping to try and have an emotional connection with the score.

The drama circulating this show also brought me out of the experience. That is a topic best explored elsewhere or this blog post would be almost quadrupled in size with that included. But all the off stage drama brought me out of things as well, it felt difficult to escape the outside world and lose myself in the story. The story also was not captivating enough to do so, there are better adaptions of this story, making it hard to not just listen to those. 

This show, though discussed in the past, now that it is in previews still does not fair well. I have not even seen in live but with everything I have seen and heard. This is one clock that will go past the stroke of midnight and much after for me, I am staying far away from this Ball.