Cinderella at Humboldt Light Opera

Cinderella is one of the world’s most popular stories, and among the oldest. It’s probably also the only one in which the climactic moment is somebody trying on a shoe.

 There are hundreds of versions from all over Asia as well as Europe (the idea that Cinderella’s beauty is proven by her small feet likely comes from China.) It’s the paradigm of the rags-to-riches tale (the “Cinderella story”), yet these variations include themes of abandonment, incest and matricide that show up in more tragic works from King Lear to Sweeney Todd.

 The best known version is the mildest: the 17th century telling by Charles Perrault, which is the one that Walt Disney adapted for his 1950 film, still the standard for several generations. Until Disney, however, the 19th century Brothers Grimm version was a close rival to Perrault’s. And it certainly is grimmer, with the stepsisters cutting off toes and heels to fit into the (non-glass) slipper, and getting blinded by birds at the end. But fairy tale experts prefer it: it has more of a fairy tale rhythm (everything happens three times), it is more complex (the stepsisters are beautiful outwardly and only ugly inside.) Cinderella is much more pro-active and she’s helped not by a fairy godmother but by nature spirits-- birds who are inspired by her devotions at her mother’s grave.

 Cinderella is also less passive in the musical version now on the Van Duzer Theatre stage at HSU, performed by the Humboldt Light Opera Company. It’s still basically the Perrault tale though, with variations that don’t alter the familiar central story.

Prince Christopher (played by James Gadd) is an uncomfortable royal, happy to be an anonymous guy at the village market, where he literally bumps into Cinderella (Katri Pitts). When the royal factotum Lionel (Larry Pitts) commands that all eligible young women attend the Prince’s ball, the intention to find him a bride embarrasses the Prince.

 But his understanding parents, the Queen (Katherine Kinley) and King (Bill Ryder,) urge him to see what happens, since his father (who also likes to hang out with the 99%) advises him that finding his one true love is mostly a matter of “dumb luck.”

 Back at home, Cinderella is bossed around by her stepmother (Tracey Barnes-Priestly) and her three stepsisters (Molly Severdia, Brandy Rose and Lily Buschmann), while imagining a better life. When she hears about the ball, she goes into action. The rest of the story you pretty much know.

The additional wrinkle is not one but three fairy godpersons: Fiona Ryder, Ellsworth Pence, and 5 year old Aurora Pitts, whose angelic presence and fully absorbed acting reminds us that children love to act out this story in play, perhaps because (as psychologist Bruno Bettleheim suggests) it reveals to them the possibilities of transformation and rescue.

 This is a big, colorful production, with a sumptuous set by Jayson Mohatt and dazzling costumes by Kevin Sharkey. Director Carol Ryder and choreographer Ciara Cheli-Colando orchestrate the graceful crowd scenes and other movement. Ryder positions the singers well and makes the most of the key moments: Cinderella entering the ball, and of course, the slipper revelation.  Makeup by Hannah Jones and Jayne Bauer especially transform the stepsisters.

 James Gadd is convincingly diffident, sincere and then ardent as the Prince, Katri Pitts is a vibrant Cinderella. Larry Pitts adds acerbic comedy as Lionel, and the three stepsisters each have a particular clownish talent. Tracey Barnes-Priestly plays the stepmother as more worried with ambition than evil, and Bill Ryder is a star even in a small role.

 The fine individual singing aside, for me the ensemble singing (Katrina Haeger and Molly Severida are musical directors) and the orchestra (conducted by Justin Sousa) provided the most musical emotion.

 At just under two hours, it’s not too much of a stretch for the natural audience of children, especially little girls (who can get a Cinderella makeover before the show-- by appointment only.)

 But there are levels of humor to keep adults involved, and spectacle for all. This musical Cinderella, with songs by Rodgers and Hammerstein, began as a 90-minute television special in 1957 starring Julie Andrews. For later stage and TV versions, songs dropped from Oklahoma and South Pacific were added, along with a song from the Richard Rodgers show No Strings and from a movie, Main Street to Broadway, in which Rodgers and Hammerstein themselves perform “There’s Music In You,” the song that ends this version of Cinderella.

 The songs generally aren’t considered to be among the composers’ best (and the Disney songs are more memorable) but they’re pleasant and occasionally witty. The story HLOC tells also seems to be a hybrid of these various musical versions. The HLOC production of Cinderella runs two more weekends on Friday and Saturday evenings at 7:30 and Sundays at 2 p.m., closing August 18.

Mikado and Cinderella for Holidays 2006

There might have been no Cole Porter or Ira Gershwin, no Dorothy Fields, Lorenz Hart or Alan Jay Lerner; certainly no Kalmar and Ruby (the composing team on classic Marx Brothers movies) and perhaps even no Lennon and McCartney, if there hadn't been a Gilbert and Sullivan.

W.S. Gilbert wrote the ingenious, anarchic lyrics, and Arthur Sullivan the bracing music for 14 comic operas first performed in London in the late 19th century (the last of which premiered when Cole Porter was in kneepants). The greatest and most famous were H.M.S Pinafore,The Pirates of Penzance and the most performed (though probably not the best) The Mikado.

In his libretto, Gilbert seemed to have learned Jonathan Swift's basic trick of lampooning his time and place by locating it safely at some fictional distance -- in Japan, for instance, then known only through the usual bag of clichés and falsehoods common to Imperial ignorance. The Mikado is obviously more about England than Japan, and the current North Coast Rep production extends the gentle satire to here and now, as in the addition of telemarketers to people who would be "never missed."

The Mikado is sometimes mounted as a silky spectacle (probably one reason it's done so often), but while Suzanne Ross' scene design is efficient and Marcia Hutson's costumes (including kimonos painted by Jennifer Mackey) are handsome and occasionally splashy, they don't overwhelm the real fun of the story -- the songs and the performances.

 Dianne Zuleger's direction keeps everything on track, which liberates this as a performers' show, and at NCRT pretty much everyone shines. Bob Service as a fussily corrupt, self-pitying Pooh-Bah; Jordan Matteoli as a silent-movie romantic hero Nanki-Poo; Anders Carlson as a forlorn Lord High Executioner who manages in the end to reconcile his British fair play with his craven ambition, and Lonnie Blankenchip Jr. in his flawless turn as the deranged Mikado -- all judiciously employ their physical comedy skills with hilarious effect.

Darcy Daughtry and Serena Zelezny have their shining moments in supporting parts: The "schoolgirls" who sing one of the play's best-known songs, "Three Little Maids From School Are We," give a jolt of energy to the first act, and the show never looks back from there.

In last season's Once Upon A Mattress (NCRT) and A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum (Ferndale Rep), Minderella Willins excelled at playing innocent ingénues, but in this show she is the antagonist, with long red evil Queen nails out of Snow White, and she is just as convincing and mesmerizing. Her singing continues to be a wonder.

 Laura Hathaway is appealing as the love interest, Yum Yum, and it is her thrilling voice that is the most emotionally powerful of this show's many pleasing elements. It's a winner.

 When Carol Martinez saw her first play in a theatre at the age of two, she was so small that her mother had to hold her seat down for the entire performance so it wouldn't flip up and fold her away. The show was Alice in Wonderland, and she claims to remember parts of it to this day: "the cards falling from the sky at the end -- the magic of it."

 Currently working as a lawyer in Eureka as her day job, she grew up listening to the soundtracks her mother bought of traveling Broadway shows that came through Orange County, "So when I was about 10 years old, I knew all the lyrics to Oklahoma, South Pacific, The Sound of Music, all of those. I've been a musical theatre nerd for a long time."

This weekend sees the opening of Rodger and Hammerstein's Cinderella,the second show she's directed at Ferndale Rep (it's also her second musical; last season's Some Enchanted Evening was her first). Written originally for the fledgling medium of television in 1957, Cinderella became a stage musical soon after.

 The Ferndale version will feature Nanette Voss and Essie Bertain alternating as Cinderella, Tyler Rich as Prince Charming and Liz Power as the Fairy Godmother. There are 10 children in the cast, and Martinez has especially enjoyed working with the young teens she's seen growing up in the rehearsal process, "becoming really responsible, really encouraging and supporting each other."

As for the experience of directing the show, she saw Cinderella's tragedy differently than most. "It was tragic that no one loved her, that her stepmother and stepsisters treated her so badly. But the real tragedy was that she had no one to love, no way to express her love, until the Prince, which is interesting in light of the Christmas season when we say it is better to give than to receive. For Cinderella, that was really true."

Cinderella begins its run at Ferndale Rep this Friday, Nov. 24, and with it the holiday madness really starts.

The Dell'Arte Company opens its 26th annual holiday show, Entrances and Exits, that same Friday at the Carlo Theatre. Following a Saturday show the troupe embarks on its traditional tour of free performances beginning at HSU's Van Duzer Theatre on Sunday, Nov. 26. The show heads out of the county the following week, then returns for a series of local hops from Dec. 4-10, landing back at the Carlo for the Dec. 14-17 weekend. You should find the schedule at dellarte.com, or call 668-5663, ext. 20.

Next Thursday, Nov. 30, HSU opens its final show of 2006, Sheridan's comedy of gossip, The School for Scandal, directed by Redwood Curtain's Clint Rebik. It runs the customary two weekends; more information at scandalhsu.blogspot.com.