Review: The Cinderella Waltz by Red Dragon Players, Austin High School
by Michael Meigs

The mischievous Don Nigro puts the Cinderella fairy tale into a humorous trailer-park context and sends it spinning around so unpredictably that you're never quite sure whether the sweet, mistreated Rosie Snow is going to turn up roses or not.

Shannon Tipton directed a one-act version of the story last week as her inaugural outing with the Austin High School Red Dragons with their 401st stage production. It was a "novice" production with a cast of faces mostly new to me, for I missed their Jungle Book earlier this year.

The core story is there, of course, with the sweetly downcast Louise Root as the titular character, afflicted by her garish, dim and horrible stepmother (Samantha Melomo) and stepsisters wearing names from Shakespeare's King Lear -- booted, grumpy Goth-style Goneril (Layla Gilliland) and Barbie-esque Reagan (Abby Lewis). Dull-witted Dad (Oliver Davis), sort of like Jed Clampett, spends most of his time in the trailer behind the playing area,  hollering for help in finding his pants.

Nigro plants a troll in the well at center stage.  Or rather, an affably confused royal flunky named "Troll,"  who fell in while wandering around the countryside, delivering invitations to the ball on behalf of the prince. Zach Completo makes his trollish footman (or perhaps footmanish troll) entirely likeable, abashed but eager to please, quite baffled by the determination of Mama Snow to get herself and her two favored girls into the palace.

Add McCoy Johnston as the village idiot, touseled, dirty and moaning in inarticulate frustration, prototype of the "barefoot boy with cheek of tan" and prime material for a potential makeover -- he is at turns silly and touching.  Riley Ryan-Wood as Mother Maggie pops out of the wishing well when needed, an ironic fairy godmother who'd be entirely at ease in an afterhours lush life bar.

This is an amusingly light tale, done with a mildly exaggerated acting style, fun for all ages.  Director Tipton keeps the "fourth" wall up -- so to speak, even though the comfortable Preas Theatre is a wide thrust stage -- and it occurred to me that the audience would have responded warmly if Rosie had addressed them directly from time to time.  The cast was relaxed and focused, with the single exception of toughie sister Goneril, with her darting eyes and side glances at the audience.

Rosie Snow does get her wish. It's not the conventional happy-ever-after prescribed by Disney, much to our satisfaction, and it involves some decisive action on her part. In fact, despite Samantha Melomo's stepmother readiness to trim feet with an axe as necessary to get 'em into that magic slipper, pretty much everyone comes out pleased at the end. And not the least of them is Riley Ryan-Wood,  that whimsical long-drink-of-water fairy godmother, revealing that it was character, not the magic potion or hooch, that brought it all about.

EXTRA

Click to view excerpts from the program for Cinderella Waltz by the Red Dragon Players

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The Cinderella Waltz
by Don Nigro
Red Dragon Players, Austin High School