Cinderella
Gaiety Theatre, Dublin
★★★☆☆
In Ballet Ireland’s new production of Cinderella, no fairy godmothers appear in puffs of smoke or pumpkins turn into carriages. Instead the choreographer Loughlan Prior transports the centuries-old fairy tale to the 1950s, when the heroine leaves behind her family in Ireland and emigrates to New York. Familiar touchstones from the original Cinderella follow, and Prior wholeheartedly embraces this entertaining vision with clarity.
The story begins with Ellie, charmingly danced by Ashley Tsuyu Burks, packing her bag and saying goodbye to her family. Swiftly, she arrives in the big city. It often proves tricky to reimagine a familiar ballet in such a different guise, but Elin Steele’s set design and Bonnie Beecher’s lighting help to shift the time and place by using intriguing black-and-white grainy photographs as backdrops.
Ellie takes a job at a posh hotel and the cast bursts into action: maids gather sheets and stuff them into washing machines while bellhops iron clothes and pour drinks. The movement captures a sense of busyness, and is cleverly aided by props. When the frenetic action finally slows down it feels welcome.
Ellie soon meets a wealthy socialite, Alexander Vanderbilt (danced by a genteel Roman Pascoli), and their tender, tentative attraction begins. He hosts a ball where Ellie’s competition for his attention predictably arrives in the form of two zany, over-the-top sisters. As in most ballet versions of Cinderella, the stepsisters provide perpetual comic relief. Here these two stumble around and consume inordinate amounts of champagne, excellently portrayed by Niamh O’Flannagain and Nicola Kilmurry.
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Prior’s use of classical ballet steps, punctuated by moments of stillness, mark the ballet’s second half. This offers a necessary contrast from the near overstimulation in the first. In particular when four couples languidly come together before the clock strikes midnight, they gracefully waltz and then pause in occasional tableaux. These moments of calm offer a chance to absorb the narrative.
Ellie and Alexander perform a pas de deux, and later during the scene the quirky fairy godmother (Ella Chambers) flicks her finger and the stage goes dark. Next begins a hunt to find who owns a missing, glittery shoe.
This reimagining of Cinderella provides ample links to the original tale that include disparity in social classes, young love, intervening forces and a little bit of magic. Prior’s vision also works because of its recognisable theme of a young Irish woman seeking fortune in New York.
Sometimes, however, the constant movement becomes more enthralling than the story, which becomes heightened on the Gaiety’s confined stage. This leaves brief flashes of uncertainty in the chain of events.
Prokofiev’s score is interspersed with additions from the sound designer Tom Lane, and overall that concept flows. When familiar excerpts of music, such as the dance from Cinderella’s ball, ring out, it becomes evident that, no matter how novel the remake of a classic, the familiarity of the original provides the greatest allure.
Cinderella is at the Gaiety, Dublin, until Saturday, November 15th; then Market Place, Armagh, Wednesday, November 18th; Hawk’s Well, Sligo, Thursday November 20th; An Grianán, Letterkenny, Saturday, November 22nd; Lime Tree, Limerick, Wednesday, November 26th, and Thursday, November 27th; National Opera House, Wexford, Saturday, November 29th; Watergate, Kilkenny, Wednesday, December 3rd; Draíocht, Blanchardstown, Friday, December 5th, and Saturday, December 6th; Glór, Ennis, Tuesday, December 9th, and Wednesday, December 10th; Siamsa Tíre, Tralee, Friday, December 12th and Saturday, December 13th; Ardhowen, Enniskillen, Wednesday, December; and Solstice, Navan, Friday, December 19th, and Saturday, December 20th
