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Austin360 blogs > Austin Arts: Seeing Things > Archives > 2010 > April > 08 > Entry
Review: ‘Sleeping Beauty’
Brothers Grimm, move over. There’s a new interpretation of ‘Sleeping Beauty’ on the block — at the Vortex theater through May 2, that is.
And this one — garnished with spectacular costumes, reinvented characters and engaging original songs — is more likely to appeal to the modern crowd.
In 2005, Vortex founder Bonnie Cullum and theater artist Content Love Knowles launched a musical theater version of the well-known fairy tale that garnered sold-out houses. Now, after receiving a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts — the first NEA grant in Vortex’s 22 year history — Cullum and Knowles have significantly revamped their revisionist fairy tale most notably by upping the production values of the sets and costumes and adding new songs and arrangements.
This Sleeping Beauty (aka Princess Briar Rose, played appealingly by Julia Lorenz) is a girl of her own power and decides to live her life in the way she chooses. But even before she appears in Act II of the roughly two hour production, the magical kingdom of Avalia isn’t exactly the Disney-fied place of common imagination. No, it’s a bit political and when the fairy Ixlamere isn’t invited to honor the baby Princess Briar Rose, friction of sort arises.
Knowles, who penned all the music to the sung-through musical, led the four-piece ensemble, gave the story an appealing score that was part cabaret, part honky-tonk, part Tom Waits. And those songs were burnished with some impressive vocal stylings by Lorenz, Jonathan Itchon and Suzanne Balling
Costumes by Pam Fletcher Friday and outrageously creative headpieces by Griffon Ramsey create the show’s visual spectacle. Ramsey uses everything from found objects to plant matter to the usual millinery material to fashion hats that read as sculpture.
Where the re-thinking the classic fairy tale grew cumbersome was the reliance on exposition rather than action to move the story along. And the 24-member, 34-character cast meant sometimes the crowding got intense and cumbersome on the tiny Vortex stage.
Still, it’s an ambitious production and, despite moments of over-wroughtness, ultimately appealing.
‘Sleeping Beauty’ continues 8 p.m. Thurdays-Sundays through May 2. See www.vortexrep.org
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By Content Love Knowles
April 9, 2010 9:07 AM | Link to this
Thank you very much for attending and writing about Sleeping Beauty, we very much appreciated. In the Dept of Credit Where Credit Is Due, I want to point out that the song “Lost In the Gleam” was written by Phil Gibbs, who played Prince Dave in the original production of Sleeping Beauty at the VORTEX in 2005. And the song “True Companion” was adapted from his “Ballad of Prince Dave” from the same show. Otherwise, I’m the guilty party!
Cheers, CLK