Andrew Lloyd Webber Pushes Cinderella Into the 21st Century
The title character in the British composer’s ‘Bad Cinderella’ is a self-described loner, rebel, and ‘freak’ who rejects the harsh standards of beauty imposed in the kingdom of Belleville.
Once upon a time, there was a British composer who found huge success spinning self-serious musicals out of subjects ranging from biblical figures to cats with highbrow literary origins. As he got older, the composer seemed to develop more of a sense of humor and whimsy, drawing inspiration from P.G. Wodehouse and even Jack Black.
One could speculate that had Andrew Lloyd Webber thought of adapting a certain fairy tale three or four decades ago, the result would have been something akin in tone to “The Phantom of the Opera,” with a swooning heroine only gliding into her glass slipper after enduring two acts of melodrama. Instead, Broadway now has the sharp, shiny bauble that is “Bad Cinderella” — introduced on the West End two years ago as simply “Cinderella,” then renamed to distinguish it from more established adaptations of the folk tale.
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