Reviews 2012
Reviews 2012
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by Rick Miller, Carolyn Bennett & Malcolm Clarke, directed by Tracey Flye
Ross Petty Productions, Elgin Theatre, Toronto
November 29, 2012-January 5, 2013
“James Bond Meets Snow White”
Snow White, Ross Petty’s seventeenth annual panto, is a real mishmash of ideas that frequently forgets that it is supposed to be aimed primarily at children, not adults. We all know that the story of Snow White connects her with seven of something. In Petty’s Snow White of 2001 he hired seven “little people”, as they prefer to be called, to play the seven “dwarfs”. This year the show’s three writers – Rick Miller, Carolyn Bennett and Malcolm Clarke – were clearly so caught up in 2012 as the 50th anniversary of the James Bond films, they thought linking Snow White to Agent 007 would be a clever idea. James Bond, renowned for inventive murders and his sexual prowess, might be a good idea for an adult panto, but we have to wonder how many kids in the kindergarten and grade school set know or care about the character. The new Bond film Skyfall is rated PG-13, like all the Bond films since 1995, so most of the core panto audience won’t likely have seen them.
Besides this, Bond has virtually nothing to do with the basic plot of the show, which makes his presence doubly unnecessary. In the writers’ new version the Evil Queen (Ross Petty, of course) plans to keep her beauty eternal by clearing the Enchanted Forest to mine it for Botox, I guess mistaking the bacterial toxin for the mineral borax. Snow White (Melissa O’Neil) wants to be a veterinarian and we first meet her as she is caring for the vermin of the urban jungle – a pigeon, a squirrel, a raccoon and a skunk. Soon she is joined by characters from various fairy tales who are being evicted from the Enchanted Forest. There is Red Riding Hood (Bryn McAuley), one of the Three Little Pigs named Ham (Reid Janisse), Pinocchio (Billy Lake) and Jack the Giant Killer (David Cotton). Now with nine characters on her side, including the Queen’s fool, Infestus (Eddie Glen), two more than the usual seven, why do we need a tenth?
The presence of so many characters diffuses our interest. In 2001 when Graham Abbey played Prince Charming, he was the sole hero who rescued Snowy with the help of the Seven Dwarfs. Now we have Snowy falling for Jack, leaving Bond to the role of social coordinator, later to be demoted to contest host. For Snowy’s friends to organize themselves to save her would have better fitted into the pattern of children’s stories where the seeming weak can outsmart the strong.
The three writers also update the story in ways that may seem clever to adults but lessen the story’s impact for children. To have Ham be an impersonation of Don Cherry makes no sense. To have him interpret each event of the story as if it were a hockey commentary is a joke aimed at parents not kids and becomes mind-numbing with every repetition. Bryn McAuley really is very funny as a (Don) Valley Girl obsessed with social media, but is this a satire meant for kids or adults with teenaged offspring? The worst example is chucking out the iconic poisoned apple for a poisoned Apple iPad. In 2001 Snow White asked the audience if she should eat the delicious looking apple to which they responded with a pleading, truly heartfelt “NO!” This time it took too long to establish that the Apple was the apple, and the response was not remotely as urgent as it was in 2001. In general, the writers seem not very familiar with the tropes of pantos except for booing the villain. There was no “He’s right behind you!” or asking the audience for advice to vary the interactive nature of the genre.
Ross Petty was, as might be expected, in his element as the Evil Queen, whom costume designer Erika Connor dressed in one hilariously hideous outfit after the next. He gave quite spirited accounts of LMFAO’s “Sexy and I Know It”, Adele’s “Rolling in the Deep” and PSY’s “Gangnam Style” – the last two so good/bad that the audience applauded before it realized it should boo. Graham Abbey decided rather pointlessly to imitate Sean Connery’s Scottish accent as Sean Connery but not his English accent when he played James Bond. This was all very peculiar since the Bonds since 1973 have had fully British accents and that, not Connery’s native accent, is what is associated with the role. The one good side to including Bond is the great parody of Bond film opening credits created by Beth Kates and Ben Chaisson.
Melissa O’Neil is an ideal Snow White – caring, innocent and too good to be true. Her strongest song was the Kelly Clarkson hit “What Doesn’t Kill You” which helped give her character a bit of spunk to balance the niceness. As Jack, David Cotton looks the part of a young hunk but either his voice is not as strong as O’Neil’s or his mic was not turned up enough, to that his rendition of One Direction’s “You Don’t Know You’re Beautiful” could not help but sound wimpy.
Among the others I’ve already mentioned Bryn McAuley’s fine talent for comedy. Billy Lake is a spritely, engaging Pinocchio, given to spouting groan-worthy wood-related puns. And special mention should be given Matt Alfano for his incredibly acrobatic dance routines, hampered only by a rather roomy raccoon outfit. After Ross Petty, Eddie Glen comes the closet to capturing just the right spirit of the panto with its mix of a good story for the kids, innuendo for the adults and fun for everybody.
With too many cooks throwing too many ingredients into the stew, I came away from the new Snow White feeling more exhausted than elated, a feeling evident in the sleepy or actually sleeping kids I saw around me. Two-and-a-half hours is rather too long for a children’s show especially when so much of it is aimed over their heads. Let’s hope that next year Petty can find writers who have a better feel for what pantos are all about and who their audience is than the trio he has this year.
©Christopher Hoile
Note: This review is a Stage Door exclusive.
Photo: Graham Abbey, Ross Petty, Melissa O’Neil and Eddie Glen. ©2012 Bruce Zinger.
For tickets, visit www.rosspetty.com.
2012-12-03
Snow White: The Deliciously Dopey Family Musical!