Disenchanted: A Cabaret of Twisted Fairy Tales

Eliane Morel – as ‘Madame d’Aulnoy’ with verray Fronch accent – invites us into her 19^th century Parisian salon for a subversive take on some well-known – or well-worn – fairy tales.  This is no Freudian Bruno Bettelheim interpretation of hidden meanings.  Rather, in monologue, song and image, Disenchanted is a retelling of the tales from the point of view of the supporting cast – with a decidedly feminist slant.  Whoever asked, for instance, whether those Ugly Sisters had a good case against that interloper, sweet little Cinderella?  Or whether the Wolf was in bed with Grandma when Little Red Riding Hood burst through the door?

Via a Magic Mirror, ‘Madame d’Aulnoy’ takes us to each of the fairy tale characters (Ms Morel plays them all, including the Magic Mirror, in sometimes cursory or arbitrary costumes) to hear – and see – another side to these supposedly patriarchal stories.  Cinderella, Jack and the Beanstalk, Little Red Riding Hood, Bluebeard’s Castle and Sleeping Beauty.  Here, one Ugly Sister is called Olga and, for some reason, has a Russian accent, and her song – with sly contemporary references to celebrity royalty – celebrates girls who escape to freedom.  Sleeping Beauty, here named Pollyanna (?), has an American accent and sings a repurposed version of ‘Que sera sera’ to protest at the Prince’s molestation of a sleeping girl – a #MeToo moment never before considered!  Angelique, just one of Bluebeard’s wives – now a corpse - warns women against smooth-talking men to the tune of favourite rhumba number ‘Sway’.  Ms Morel, who sings in the right cabaret style, and musical director Daryl Wallis have selected familiar tunes and given them new, pointed, often witty, but sometimes clunky lyrics – ‘clunky’ because just a little heavy handed.

But Disenchanted is no ‘point and shoot’ record of a cabaret performance.  Ms Morel and her team understand that if you’re going online, you have to do better than that.  Madame d’Aulnoy’s salon, Cinderella’s ballroom, the Wolf’s forest, the limbo of Bluebeard’s murdered wives, each and all are created with well-chosen backgrounds and the show has constant visual variety with zippy work from editor Hayden Rogers.  Indeed, one might wish that as much ingenuity had gone into the words and somewhat arch performance as has gone into the graphics.  However, with plenty of laughs and impeccable politics, Disenchanted is fun and more than holds up for its 53 minutes.

Michael Brindley

https://melbournefringe.com.au/event/disenchanted-a-cabaret-of-twisted-fairy-tales/