Disenchanted
Breakthrough Theatre, Orlando, Florida
Directed by Wade Hair
Starring Krys Arvelo, Carmen Kaylyn Cartagena, Marasha Symone Johnson, Allie Van Buskirk, Lillian G. Kaku, Ariel Lugo, Melina Kay, Carla Hanson, Elle Grant, Shauni Ramai
Review by Carl F. Gauze
It’s time for the toons to have a say in their own dimension. I’ve followed this show’s development from its inception at the Orlando Fringe since 2013, or maybe earlier. It not only holds up, it creeps a little better every time as creator Fiely Matias tweaks his biggest project ever.
In the sort of space that live theater exists inside of, all the female Disney heroines hang out when they aren’t flopping around the film and theater worlds. They all struggle to get their guy, and not much more. You don’t really notice the stereotyping until you throw them all in a pile and listen to all their hit songs, and then you might notice that single theme: “I’m so lonely, only a man (of whatever species) will make me happy.”
The leader of the pack is Snow White (Arvelo) a woman complete with a magic mirror, a poisoned apple, a glass coffin, and seven dwarves. You think she could get somewhere on just that, but she’s controlled by an evil queen, and comes from the rich, yet misogynistic Central European storytelling tradition. All it’s missing are the religious wars, and that’s how more than a few of us got our guilt on.
All in all, there are 20 imperiled and notionally helpless women on stage, and a few new ones have signed on since we last saw this show: Princess Badroulbadour (Shauni Ramai), who comes from the Middle Eastern tradition, can best be describes as Aladdin’s main squeeze. She’s defined by her boyfriend, cute as he may be. And here the men we find are boy-band hot and care more about how the magic carpet performs than what their GF wants to do with her life beyond that morally ambiguous happily ever after.
The cast here is outstanding, even if not everyone gets their own solo. Princess Badroulbadour deserved more stage time, while Melina Kay channeled Pocahontas, who met some guy who proceeded to wipe out her family with a fatal social disease. Then we have “The Princess Who Kissed the Frog” (Carla Hanson) who doesn’t even get a proper name.
There’s a message, but it’s a well-presented message hidden behind lots of Disney-safe tunes filling the evening. The show has evolved over the years, and now does a better job of telling the various women’s backstories while retaining its fun collection of tunes. Catch this orbit of the show, you never know when it will pass this way again.
www.breakthroughtheatre.com
