My opinion from intermission carried through in the end: I have no idea if it was actually any good, but it was fun enough, even if I wouldn't necessarily want to see it again. It's campy, it's cheesy, and generally likeable. But good? I don't know.
- The cast is strong. I've seen Briga Heelan in plenty of shows over the past decade and generally found her to be...fine. She seemed stuck in perfect dream girl roles in Ground Floor and Undateable, and was the weakest part of Good News. So I was surprised and impressed by her here. I thought she was completely charming and a strong lead. This is the most I've ever liked her. Guarini was quite good. The stepmother part is right in Simard's wheelhouse and she was reliably funny (in the first act she felt like she could have been continuing her big scene as Sarah in Company. But then
Click Here To Toggle Spoiler Content
in her big number in Act 2 she was legitimately terrifying, which I found impressive.
Ryan Steele is completely adorable. I also have to give a shoutout to the child actress who was on tonight--Isabella Ye, I believe. I thought she was excellent.
- The weakness is the book. There's too much of it (the show needed more songs), and it's not nearly as clever or smart as it should (could?) be. It pushes all the expected (and right) buttons and hits the expected empowerment notes, but in the most basic way. There were times I was wondering...is this actually kind of dumb? It's nowhere near as good as something like & Juliet. (I thought maybe it was on the same level as Titanique, but no, I don't thought it got there either.)
- Also the choreography went too heavy on weird, jerky hand and arm motions.
Click Here To Toggle Spoiler Content
- They seemed to be pushing a possible romantic connection between Cinderella and Snow White pretty hard, and I wondered if they were going to go there. They ultimately didn't, which felt like a bit of a cop-out, though I guess it would have felt too much like giving their story an ending when the whole point of the ending was that all the characters got to write their stories moving forward. And I got the gay romance elsewhere that hit me in my sappy gay heart, so I can't complain too much.
- I don't know if it was bad everywhere in the theater, but if you don't like really, really loud music, I wouldn't sit too close to the front. I did have to plug my ears at times. SO loud, and the seats were vibrating from the bass. Definitely gave it a club atmosphere that paid off in the end, but was a lot at times. (SO loud!)
Glad I got to see it. Not sure if it's something I would recommend, but probably perfect for the target audience (like I said earlier, the audience had to be three-quarter gays). Cheesy, campy, super gay--so...fun. Needed more songs though.
Updated On: 5/14/23 at 11:40 PM
.jpg?format=auto&width=365)
