Beauty Pageant

by Toby Zinman

This is not your grandma's Sleeping Beauty, nor Charles Perrault's, nor Tchaikovsky's. This is a panto (short for "pantomime"), a traditional British holiday-season entertainment, always featuring a man playing The Dame—think Edna—and always written and played on enough levels to amuse both the children and the adults. And this new show—based on the fairy tale—does its multiple levels with much charm.

There's the familiar plot in which the baby princess is cursed by the Wicked Fairy to prick her finger on her 18th birthday and die. The curse is then softened by the Good Fairy so that the princess can live, but she must sleep for 100 years and be awakened by a kiss. And there's the usual magical forest surrounding the castle in which S.B. lies sleeping. But in this version, S.B. is a spoiled, materialistic brat who rejects Jack (despite the kiss) and chooses instead the rich Baron who exploits the peasants. Jack's mother, Mother Hubbard, an old flame of the Baron's, takes matters in hand, and everybody lives, just as they should, happily ever after.

Mark Lazar plays The Dame role—in this case Mother Hubbard—with what can only be called flirty swagger; she/he arrives onstage on a scooter, shouting, "Gangway, gangway! Girl on a mission!" Meanwhile, Jack arrives with a bucketful of candy from the three wells: "You've never heard of the three wells? Well, well, well." Erin Weaver throws wonderful temper tantrums as the bratty S.B.—"She's royal, not regal/ That vain little weevil"—but why did they stuff her into that painful-looking costume? Roslyn Ruff is lovely as the serene Good Fairy (no wings—fairy operatives are on the down-low). Most spectacular is Mary Elizabeth Scallen as Specula, the eye-flashing, cackling Wicked Fairy, and most amazing to look at is newcomer Samantha Bellomo as the gorgeous, whip-cracking Night Witch.

Gary Smith, a top doc at Penn's School of Veterinary Medicine, grew up in England watching pantos. He wrote the music and the lyrics; the show was "adapted by" Vince di Mura and Kathryn Petersen (so who did what remains unclear) and directed by Abigail Adams (who could pick up the pace a bit—it's for children, not morons). The song lyrics are clever, but the music is hard to sing and the tempo is irritatingly slow. The bluesy "Staring Ruin in the Face" and an olde Englishe ballade, "The Night Witch's Song," are the standout numbers. The kids love the audience participation, especially when they get to dance onstage at the end—although some of it, like "If You Believe in Peanut Butter Sandwiches" at the start of Act 2, goes on way too long.

Sleeping Beauty Through Jan. 2, People's Light & Theatre Co., 39 Conestoga Rd., Malvern, 610-644-3500