I have a very soft spot in my heart for the musical “Cinderella” and I’m sure a big part of the reason is that I came to know this musical inside and out back in the late 60’s and early 70’s, when it was rebroadcast every year over CBS. Part of me feels like my family never ever missed it, although truth be told I have absolutely no memory whatsoever of my folks or siblings watching this with me. They very well may have. All I know is that this musical took hold of me the first time I saw it and has yet to release its emotional grip. And although there is a certain historic quality to the original telecast from 1957 with Julie Andrews – which is now available on DVD- and plenty of star-powered glitz in the later remake with Brandy and Whitney Houston, for me the quintessential “Cinderella” will always be the 1965 production with Lesley Ann Warren, Stuart Damon, Celeste Holm, Ginger Rogers, and Walter Pidgeon. I know that the first time I saw it on home video, two decades after its last telecast, I was shocked by the cardboard-looking sets, the cheesy-looking costumes, and the amateurish choreography. But that story! That music! All the budget constraints in the world can’t get in the way of that.
There is also something almost primeval about the heart of this fairy tale. . . the promise of possibility even when you are caught in a morass of awfulness. . . the promise that true love might be out there even for someone who has never known it before. I was really struck by that as I watched this particular performance, because the Fireside Theater in Ft. Atkinson – where we saw Cinderella yesterday afternoon – is a theater-in-the-round, which gives you a very good view of many of your fellow audience members. As the first fairy godmother scene was playing, I suddenly noticed that every single person seated in the front row across from us and in the front rows to the left and right of us was female. . . ranging from young girls to little old ladies. And except for a couple of young teens who seemed royally unimpressed, everyone else in the front row appeared to be utterly entranced by what they were seeing and hearing. And while that says something about the power of Live Theater, I think it also says something about this particular story and these particular characters and how much they mean to us, whether you’re 5 or 95 By the way, I think Kathy and I – and Bob – and Polly and Mark – probably enjoyed watching Lorelai watch the show as much as we enjoyed watching the show itself. Her folks did a great job of getting her acquainted with some of the songs -and of course she knew the basic story line- but when it came to the specifics, she had no idea what was coming next.
Another reason I love this show so much is that it has intersected with my life in a couple of lovely ways. First of all, my brother Steve portrayed the Prince in Atlantic High School’s production (I was so glad to be able to come back from college to see that) – and several years later, my sister Randi portrayed Cinderella for her high school’s production. Unfortunately, I was in graduate school in Lincoln, Neb. at the time and couldn’t come home to see her- something which I regret to this day. Finally, I arranged a medley of five songs from Cinderella as the finale for my junior voice recital with Annette Kirkpatrick (now de la Torre) – my first effort at arranging something – and after all of those years of singing “Ten Minutes Ago” to myself, it felt so fantastic to finally sing it for real.
The trouble with loving a show this much is that it’s hard not to feel possessive and protective of it. So I would be less than candid if I didn’t admit that there were many moments in Sunday’s performance when I wanted to scream . . . and I don’t mean scream as in a teenager screaming for their latest American Idol favorite – but rather as in screaming at your dog for chewing a volume from your encyclopedia. It was not an objection over the singing or acting, which was pretty darned good- or the production, which was remarkably effective given how small the stage is. What made me want to scream was much of the spoken dialogue, which sounded so “off-key” to me, especially in contrast to the fantastic songs. This show is done in a number of different versions, and the only one that I really like without reservation is the one I grew up with – which is probably as much a testament to the Can’t-Teach-An-Old-Dog-New- Tricks side of my personality. Let me cite just one moment from that particular script which I missed SO much. In that production, Cinderella and the Prince first cross paths way before the ball has even been announced. He is traveling back to the castle and stops to rest his horse, and Cinderella comes out and offers to get him a dipper of water from their well. . . and much later in the story, when the prince is weary from his journey through the kingdom, trying to find the mysterious young woman whom he’d met at the ball, she again gives him a dipper of water- and that is how he recognizes her and asks her to try on the glass slipper. Part of what is neat about that is that it suggests that what made the Prince fall in love with Cinderella was not just her dazzling good looks – – – but rather her kind heart. Now THAT’S what this story should be about!
See what I mean about caring too much? It’s just a musical , for pete’s sake. . . and one based on a fairy tale. . . but when it’s lodged deeply in our hearts, it’s hard not to care about each and every detail that imprinted themselves on our heart when we first fell in love with the piece.
pictured above: This is our niece Lorelai meeting Cinderella and The Prince after the performance. The little girl who went right before Lorelai was absolutely terrified . . . You would have thought she was saying hello to Frankenstein and Count Dracula, for all the crying and carrying on she did. Thank you, Lorelai, for not creating a similar scene.