‘Cinderella’ fails

Press, 11 October 1982, Page 6

‘Cinderella’ fails

"Cinderella,” written and produced by Peter Roberts for the Christchurch Theatre Workshop; at the Repertory Theatre, October 9 to 16, 7.30 pin. Reviewed by Philip Norman. -Occasionally, very occasionally, the desire to throw ip the towel overwhelms all sense of duty. Saturday evening's r “Cinderella" by the Christchurch Theatre Workshop lamentably was one-of those-times. ; The evening was a double disappointment: the, version of the . Perrault perennial used was. a- locally written one, and it followed on the heels of; the society’s' highly entertaining production of

“For Old Time’s Sake.” The 100 long minutes of preliminaries that comprised the first act were so exhausting that even the academic question of whether Cinderella would make it to the ball by midnight, let alone leave it by that time, ceased to be of interest. Where then did the production go . wrong? First and foremost, it never really found its audience. It • hovered unsatisfyingly between being a pantomime for children and a revue for adults. Second,:no real rapportwas established between '; thefactors . and the audience, with the" exception' perhaps of the hardworking Jennie

Goodman as Priscilla and Ron Bell as Buttons (who by the very definition of the role had sympathy on his side.) Third, the show had no pace, little sparkle, and minimal variety. The exception to this was a number of interpolated dance sequences that included a few foxylooking ladies tap-dancing to an up-beat William Tell Overture. A few visual gags worked well, for example, Ken Poole’s undressing as the ugly sister, but most of the spoken gags drifted unnoticed through the audito.rium. Free sweets.for the "audience at, interval were a nice touch