THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, November 2, 1994 TAG: 9411020124
SECTION: VIRGINIA BEACH BEACON PAGE: 14 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Theater Review
SOURCE: Montague Gammon, Correspondent
LENGTH: Medium: 71 lines
The Hurrah Players have certainly given their production of ``Cinderella'' everything it needs to be a crowd pleaser.
Any musical with book and score by Rodgers and Hammerstein has a strong start in the world; if ``Cinderella'' is no ``Sound of Music,'' it is still a cut above many well known works by other authors and composers.
More importantly, this show is one of the lushest productions anyone will find anywhere. There is a lovely and talented young lady in the title role and plenty of strong players throughout the cast.
Director and choreographer Hugh Copeland and musical director Polly Martin bring to ``Cinderella'' years of experience turning out tried and true hits. That experience shows in smooth execution, on the stage and in the orchestra pit.
The Hurrah Players always seem to have good sets and costumes, but the finely painted, detailed backdrops of a village street scene and of a castle exterior in this show are truly extraordinary. Those pieces are on a par with the scenery one would find at the New York rental studios.
Nor are the painted drops the only pieces worth special notice. Cinderella's coach is exquisite, and most effectively introduced, and the white and gold dominated wedding scenery practically defines the concept of elegant simplicity.
All this is the work of Lonna and Mike Trent, who are effectively the in-house design team for Hurrah Players. Their talents, which also are applied with fine effect to the company's costumes, have gone unheralded for too long.
Leading lady Mary Faber has all the singing, acting and dancing abilities one would expect to find in someone playing a title character, while the term ``pretty as a picture'' could have been coined just for her. She has the fresh-faced quality of blossoming adolescence that is ideal for the character of Cinderella. To go with her junior prom queen looks, Faber projects an unspoiled innocence that gives her performance a special charm.
Cinderella's Fairy Godmother, Tracy Sample, is a vivacious delight with her true singing voice and her hip talking lingo.
The evil Stepmother and the foolish Stepsisters are played as clowns, complete with outlandish costumes and makeup. Victoria Blake, Carrie Grace Morgan and Michele Richey get to play their comedy broadly, but never let their acting become coarse or self-destructive.
Of course, there are a raft of chorus performers, from adorable mouse children to adult courtiers, who all deserve attention and applause.
This isn't the sort of script that demands subtle, multilayered characterizations, but Lucius Bennett and Billie Jo Birsch do find a tender subtext underneath their portrayals of the King and Queen. ``Cinderella'' is unusual amongst formulaic American comedies, in that this old married couple are not bickering adversaries.
Bennett and Birsch make clear, without making any unseemly display, the idea that this pair still love one another quite deeply. Decades together have seasoned their affection with quiet, comfortably shared confidence and trust.
There is a special moment in this production as the King and Queen wait down stage, when the Prince and Cinderella enter through an arch. Suddenly the two generations, the one in their colorful royal regalia, the others dressed in wedding white, share the stage. The focus abruptly, but ever so slightly, shifts from King and Queen to Prince and Princess. In one stage picture, Copeland has encapsulated the ``old order changing, yielding place to new'' with the promise of enduring human romance.
The sense that the young lovers can have the same happiness that the older couple has found gives this play the emotional content to rise above being just another retold fairy tale. by CNB