Theatre
The Curse of Snow White
Manoel Theatre
Fairy tales make great fodder for reconstruction because their plots allow for flexibility and often the magic that accompanies them is used to great advantage in solving problems and closing plot holes.
This year’s panto offering by Masquerade did just that – taking the traditional story of Snow White and transforming it into The Curse of Snow White – making her beauty her downfall and ending with a rather surprising twist at the end.
Malcolm Galea’s script was strong and well-plotted although I was not quite sold on the idea of having vampires play such a strong role as misunderstood victims: we’ve had more than enough vampires in recent cultural and literary history.
What I did like about the vampire scenes and several others too was the Burtonesque quality of the setting – especially the vampire lair/bar scene, where an honest romantic, Sir Castick (Andre Agius) tells Horrible Harold the narrator (Joe Depasquale) that he cannot quite understand why there is an antagonistic relationship between the vampires and the people up at the castle to begin with.
Agius made a pleasant but rather uninspiring principal boy as an anti-hero who was part Edward Scissorhands and part Beetlejuice. His character’s calm demeanour and brooding nature kept him from fully engaging with Rachel Fabri’s excellent Snow White at the start – and this was reflected in the Call me Maybe/Payphone mash-up where they declare their budding love for each other – a good idea although overdone, but not executed as well as it could have been.
Fabri’s performance as the sweet but gutsy Snow White was great and her lovely voice warmed up to an excellent performance of Think of Me from the Phantom of the Opera – one of the show’s stronger scenes. It was a pity that her voice was not well-matched with the Dame’s, resulting in Colin Fitz’s songs not being properly pitched for him.
Fitz’s Dame, Miss O’Mlee, was amusing enough but rather unmemorable, mainly due to rather slow pacing when it came to the delivery of his punchlines. He was much more naturally funny during the children’s participation segment – I really enjoyed his baffled comments about unpronounceable children’s toys.
The other leading lady of the show was Catherine Brown’s Queen Narcissa – the epitome of the annoying and sneaky baddie – the evil witch with the wicked laugh and the falsely sweet intentions. Her Burtonesque make-up made her look like the Queen of Hearts in Alice in Wonderland and was a credit to the company’s consistency in terms of the look and setting of their shows.
Ernest Camilleri’s sumptuous costumes truly made the characters come to life, along with Louis Noir’s contribution to the Dame and dwarves’ costumes.
The idea behind the tableaux involving the dwarves was quite clever thanks to Ray Farrugia’s stylised set design, and the seven dwarves – played by Gianni Selvaggi, James Muscat, John Marinelli, Kristina Frendo, Martina Rizzo, Matthew Manfre and Vikesh Godhwani – bagged several laughs. Queen Narcissa’s consort, King Swizzlestick , played by Louis Cassar, had rather poor diction, but this was actually written into the quips in the script, so it made for good fun, and his strong and deep singing voice made for some solid vocal performances. I also enjoyed Steffi Thake and Milly Uylenbrock’s Sandy and Mandy – the two supposedly evil sidekick goons to the Queen.
They were plain silly in an endearing way which really worked – two dumb blonde supermodels (and they really were pretty); the irony is that playing dumb is not easy and these two nailed it. Of the minor characters, Bolton White’s Huntsman, Gravalax, was just like his moniker – grave and relaxed in a seriously laid-back manner. The conception of the minor characters was actually very strong and allowed for more development.
Muddles, the court butler, played by an excellent Joseph Zammit was another star of the show whose mirror duet with his reflection was very clever as a concept and translated terrifically as a performance.
Indeed the magic mirror itself was a great example of how technology and theatre work well together. Steve Hili’s Raphael Ection – the man in the mirror was quite a character with his Jamaican accent and flamboyant (and rather risqué) dress sense – one that contrasted well with the romantic goth style that his long lost love, Lady Oracle had.
Rebecca Camilleri’s Lady Oracle made the concept of a dark fairy cool and had the voice to match her look – a belter with a heart.
Anthony Bezzina’s vision for the show was clear and focused, demanding and receiving lots of energy from the chorus who were very disciplined and worked well as a team – a tribute to Bezzina’s direction, Stefania Galea’s vocal coaching, Kevin Abela’s musical direction and the highly aesthetically pleasing and tightly executed choreography by Lee McCallion – not a single step seemed out of line – I haven’t seen such clean panto dance moves in quite a while.
All in all, The Curse of Snow White was an entertaining night out and certainly carried the magic and sparkle that a seasonal family show should have.