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by Jeremy Diamond, directed by Tracey Flye

Ross Petty Productions, Elgin Theatre, Toronto

December 1, 2016-January 7, 2017

“A Very Sleepy Sleeping Beauty”

The first Ross Petty Productions panto without Ross Petty was bound to be a disappointment, but few would expect it to be quite as disappointing as it is.  The first problem is that the show has moved so far away from what a Christmas pantomime is supposed to be.  It has basically become a jukebox musical for children with booing as the only form of audience participation.  Second, both the villainous and the comic leads are weak.  Third, the story is unduly drawn out and the allusions more likely to appeal to adults than children.  There is often a lot of activity on stage, but the overall effect of this Sleeping Beauty is, well sleep-inducing.

The show begins inauspiciously with a duet by Wilhelm and Jakob Grimm (Laurie Murdoch and Troy Goldthorp subbing for Eddie Glen) about how grim their fairy tales are (geddit?).  Who knows where script writer Jeremy Diamond got this idea, since the main source of the fairy tale of Sleeping Beauty is not the Brothers Grimm (1812) but French author Charles Perrault (1697).  In any case Murdoch and Goldthorp use such heavy ersatz German accents that it’s nearly impossible to know what they’re singing about.

Diamond’s plot follows the fairy tale fairly closely at the beginning with the King (Murdoch again) and Queen (Lisa Horner) of Torontonia welcoming their longed-for first child Rose.  Three fairies are invited to the christening and bless Rose with the gifts of beauty, goodness and harmony.  Unfortunately, the King and Queen have neglected to invite the evil Witch of the Swamp, Malignicent (Hillary Farr) – an obvious reference to the 2014 movie Maleficent that tells the Sleeping Beauty story from the wicked fairy’s point of view.  Malignicent curses Rose with death should she be pricked by any sharp object before her seventeenth birthday.  Luckily, there arrives a fourth good fairy Sparklebum (Paul Constable), a relation of Plumbum played by Dan Chameroy in previous Ross Petty pantos.  Though still a fairy-in-training, Sparklebum manages to convert Malignicent’s curse from death to sleep from which Rose can awake only if she receives true love’s kiss.

As in the fairy tale the King and Queen remove all sharp object from the castle.  Diamond, unfortunately, also has them hire three female Charlie’s Angels-like protectors (Alexandra Beaton, Jennifer Mote and Taveeta Szymanowicz) whose main function is to fall into kickboxer-style dance routines whenever Rose is threatened.  Her parents also place Rose (A.J. Bridel) in a human-sized Zorb ball for extra protection. 

Here Diamond begins adding unnecessary complications.  Once grown up Rose falls in love with the court lutenist Luke (James Daly), who is part-troll, but her parents already have a list of royal suitors for her to consider.  The disconsolate Luke wanders off into the swamp realm where Malignicent gives him a style make-over and hypnotizes him to bring a turntable with needle into the palace.  As per the fairy tale, Rose pricks her finger on the needle minutes before her eighteenth birthday, but, completely contrary to the fairy tale, Luke deliberately also pricks his finger so he can join Rose in Dreamland. 

Diamond’s version thus omits what is the most attractive part of the story when the good fairy from the christening puts the entire household to sleep along with the Sleeping Beauty.  We are shown, unconvincingly via video, that Rose’s beauty fades as she sleeps, but we miss the spectacle of the entire palace descending into slumber and then the reverse when they all awaken as if only one night had passed.

Instead of this, Diamond gives us an overly long second act set in Dreamland, which is ruled by a King and Queen (Murdoch and Horner) strangely reminiscent of the King and Queen of Torontonia.  Diamond’s satire of them as blissed-out hippies in psychedelic onesies will go over children’s heads and didn’t seem to draw much laughter from the adults.  With both the hero and heroine asleep, Diamond has to do some pretty tricky manoeuvring to make the story work.  Besides that, he feels, for some reason that he must integrate the background of Hillary Farr into the proceedings.

This is a big mistake.  Farr, who once had a bit part in The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975), is now best known for a reality television programme called Love It or List It running since 2008 on the HGTV network.  This show apparently has to do with Farr redecorating a couple’s home and the couple then deciding whether to stay in their refurbished home or sell it for another house.  “Famous” though Farr may be from this show, these are not issues that are at the top of most children’s list of exciting things to do – or even on that of most adults. Nevertheless, Diamond presses on and the plot is resolved with a redecorating challenge between Malignicent and Sparklebum representing Rose, wherein (Are you listening carefully?) if Malignicent wins, Rose exits Dreamland awakens in the real world.  To help Malignicent win, the audience is encouraged, contrary to all panto rules, to cheer the villain and boo the heroes.  Diamond may think he is putting a new twist on the panto, but it is so twisted as no longer to make any sense.  And a design challenge for a battle between good and evil is just a bore.

Besides its overcomplicated plot, Diamond’s script is also lacking in wit and humour, and what little of it there is concerning toll roads and property taxes is not directed at children.  Gone is the simplicity of old jokes and terrible puns. 

A weak script can sometimes be brought to life by terrific performances but here the deficit lies with the two most important roles – the villain and the dame.  Hillary Farr has great help from designer Michael Gianfrancesco in looking the part – really just like Angelina Jolie in Maleficent without the horns.  Farr seems to be pushing her voice to give it some weight, but she does have a good evil laugh.  Overall, however, she comes off more like Joan Collins as Alexis in the old TV soap Dynasty than as the embodiment of evil.  In a bid to link this Petty-less show with its predecessors, Diamond has Malignicent consult Patty as Captain Hook via video.  The force and assurance that Petty exerts in this pre-taped segment is so strong and assured, mixing the right amount of comedy with villainy, that it instantly makes Farr look weak in comparison.                

The same is true of Paul Constable as Sparklebum.  It would be better not to have his character in any way recall Dan Chameroy’s Plumbum, because the comparison is entirely to Constable’s disadvantage.  It may be funny to see someone known for Canadian Tire commercials in drag, but Constable is exceedingly bland.  Diamond has Sparklebum reconnect with Chameroy as Plumbum via video and again the energy exuded by the prerecorded Chameroy far outshines that of Constable on stage.

The second comic lead at Ross Petty pantos for many years has been Eddie Glen, who had always served as a great down-to-earth foil to the grandiose visions of Petty’s villains.  Here Malignicent’s spy, the inexplicably named EGG, is not as well conceived and his role as a German wedding planner for the Torontonian royals just isn’t funny.  The night I saw the show, Troy Goldthorp, Glen’s understudy was playing the role, and his German accent was so overdone that he was incomprehensible.  He did prove to have a very strong singing voice and I would like to hear him in a standard musical. 

Luckily, the hero and heroine are excellent.  James Daly, last seen as the callow youth Harold in “Master Harold”... and the Boys at the Shaw Festival, reveals a completely different side to his talents.  He has a fine singing voice, can play the guitar, dance and has a great sense of comedy.  As Rose, A.J. Bridel brims with energy and strength.  It’s no surprise she puts across Hedley’s “Lose Control” with even more flair than the Hedley himself.

Over the years Ross Petty’s pantos have gradually been divesting themselves of most of the main feature that make pantos fun – audience participation.  In Sleeping Beauty the main form of response is booing the villain.  There is also a half-hearted attempt at “Oh no, it’s not!” in the more awkward form of “Oh no, it doesn’t!”  But the show has lost some of the best interactive opportunities such as having the hero or heroine seek advice from the audience.

For Cinderella in 2014, Petty introduced a giant LED screen that covers the entire back wall of the stage.  Projection designers Beth Kates and Ben Chaisson create the modern equivalent of scenic backdrops that have the advantages of changing instantly, shining brightly and displaying innumerable special effects.  Nothing is wrong when Kates and Chaisson merely use the screen to change location.  But when they start to add movement onscreen that competes with the live movement onstage, the result is distracting.  The present show now looks less like live theatre and more like the performers are acting in front of a huge video game. 

Kates and Chaisson also use traditional front projection on a screen used as the front curtain itself for a series of commercials that punctuate the action.  In the past these commercials featuring actors from the cast were so funny that one really didn’t mind them.  This time none of them succeeded so that the the show gave more the experience of watching a gigantic television than of live theatre.  With this Sleeping Beauty one couldn’t help but think that technology and commercialism were significantly compromising the reason why parents take children to pantos in the first place – namely to give them an experience of live theatre. 

                

As it happens other companies have started producing pantos, and a very low tech, low budget show like Torrent Productions’ Robin Hood captures more the spirit of a real panto than does the current Ross Petty extravaganza.  Petty’s panto last year,  Peter Pan in Wonderland written by Chris Earle had such a funny script and such clever use of music that one could overlook the negative elements of the production.  Here, with an over-complicated script and a lacklustre dame and villain, the over-reliance on tech effects is all too apparent. 

Despite what Hollywood and Broadway think, children really don’t care much about special effects.  Adults seem to forget that childrens’ imaginations are still fully active.  All they need in a panto is a good story clearly told and lots of chances to interact with the show.  Let’s hope Ross Petty Productions focusses more on these essentials next time.

                   

©Christopher Hoile

Note: This review is a Stage Door exclusive. 

Photos: (from top) Hillary Farr as Malignicent; Alexandra Beaton, James Daly, A.J. Bridel, Eddie Glen, Hillary Farr, Paul Constable and Taveeta Szymanowicz; A.J. Bridel as Rose and James Daly as Luke. ©2016 Bruce Zinger and Racheal McCaig.

For tickets, visit http://rosspetty.com.