Fred Willard in A Cinderella Christmas, and Eclectic Company's Askance

Fred Willard in A Cinderella Christmas, and Eclectic Company's Askance

By Steven Leigh Morris Tue., Dec. 27 2011 at 10:53 PM

Courtesy El Portal Theatre

"A Cinderella Christmas"

Kris Lythgoe's A Cinderella Christmas at North Hollywood's El Portal Theatre is this week's Pick.

For all New Theater Reviews, go to the jump. Also, check out this coming week's stage feature on three critics' most memorable moments of 2011, and Fela! at the Ahmanson.

Many thanks to those who submitted local theater anecdotes from 2011. Pouring over them this week. Happy New Year!

NEW THEATER REVIEWS, scheduled for publication December 29, 2011

ASKANCE

David Nott

Playwright Kerr Seth Lordygan grapples with some profound subject matter in his drama set in an old people's home. The inhabitants are facing relocation and an uncertain future, so tempers are flaring. Eventually some deep and harrowing memories resurface and unexpected connections are revealed. To his credit, early on Lordygan deftly elicits sympathy for his characters, with the prickly banter between the old couple Milly (Kenlyn Kanouse) and Irving (Joseph Cardinale) cross-cut with their tender courtship decades earlier (young Mille is Beth Ricketson, young Irving an excellent Adam Coggins). RJ Farrington is great as the gruff and sassy nurse, her stern quips masking true affection for her charges, while Taylor Ashbrook delivers her usual grace as the caring nurse. Sabrina Lloyd's sensitive direction maximizes the script's nuances and allows room for meaningful glances. Less successful are the too numerous monologues from old-timer Sylvia, who has dementia, yet Ivy Jones brings some magnificence to her ramblings before the play devolves into histrionics. Eclectic Company Theatre, 5312 Laurel Canyon Blvd., Valley Village; Thurs.-Sat., 8 p.m.; Sun., 6 p.m.; through Feb. 13. (818) 508-3003, eclecticcompanytheatre.org. (Pauline Adamek)

PICK OF THE WEEK: A CINDERELLA CHRISTMAS

Courtesy El Portal Theatre

is the attempt by writer Kris Lythgoe and director Bonnie Lythgoe to emulate the popular British "pantos": musical fairy tales incorporating topical humor, music and broad clowning. It includes a bit of everything: indoor snowstorms, audience participation, sing-alongs, TV veterans (Fred Willard as Cinderella's impoverished father, Baron Hardup), Broadway performers (Shoshana Bean as the Fairy Godmother), American Idol favorites (David Hernandez as the Prince's equerry), lively dancing, glittery costumes and acres of deftly painted scenery in Walt Disney-Victorian style. There's lots of magic to delight the kids -- who are invited to boo the ugly stepsisters -- and a live miniature horse to pull Cinderella's pumpkin coach. There are jokes, some raunchy, to amuse the grown-ups -- about the Kardashians and their ilk. The sex-crazed stepsisters, played in grotesque drag by Jeff Sumner and Mark Edgar Stephens, are named "Cowel" and "Seecrest." The songs range from current pop to "Over the Rainbow" and "Old MacDonald Had a Farm." Veronica Dunne is an appealing Cinderella, and Nico Evers-Swindell is dashing as the handsome, vain Prince Charming. El Portal Theatre, 5269 Lankershim Blvd., N. Hlywd.; call for schedule; thru Jan. 9. (818) 508-4200, elportaltheatre.com (Neal Weaver)

We Recommend

Amy

This was a terrible production and this review is ridiculous. The script is produced and directed by the creators of American Idol and the entire play is loaded with campy references to the show. Fred Williard gets top billing, though he is onstage hardly at all. When he is onstage, he is completely under-used. The writers have given him loads of ‘wink wink’ lines that reference every Christopher Guest film in which he has appeared.The stepsisters (annoyingly named Cowell and Seecrest) are ironically the only interesting element in the production. Any woman in the audience would have to wince when the sisters are described as being over 40-years-old and the sole supporters of Cinderella and her dead-beat Dad, played by Williard… In a room full of school-age girls and their middle-aged mothers, getting the opportunity to boo working women is always loads of fun.Oddly, though the title of the play is Cinderella, she is not the main character. The main character is an invented character named Buttons, Cinderella’s manservant (do servant’s have servants?), a teddy-bear loving buffoon that throughout the production has fifteen-minute long soliloquies expressing his love for her. He finally proposes and she aptly rejects him. As his character has the charm of an androgynous man-child, no one blames her.