Review | Andrew Lloyd Webber's 'Bad Cinderella' gets the title it deserves - The Washington Post

Comment on this storyNEW YORK — Once upon a time there was a Broadway musical with the discreet charm of the Chippendales and the insouciant finesse of “The Bachelor.” And it went by the inadvertently self-owning title of “Bad Cinderella.”

Well, not one in which the looks-obsessed townspeople of Belleville sing about Bad Cinderella (Linedy Genao) not wearing beauty-pageant dresses and makeup — and then she shows up a few minutes later sophisticatedly done up.

Or in which her fairy godmother-conducted overhaul includes silvery locks giving her the appearance of a character out of “X-Men: The Last Stand.” Or that features a performance by Prince Charming (Cameron Loyal) that is 90 percent pectoral.

Save for the polished wickedness of Carolee Carmello as the evil Stepmother, the production staged by Laurence Connor and choreographed by JoAnn M. Hunter is one pandering, overheated conceit after another.

The show ushers in what’s shaping up as a peculiar spring on Broadway, one in which a play that was to begin in April, “Room” with Tony winner Adrienne Warren ( “Tina”), abruptly shuttered in rehearsals and an underwhelming revival of Bob Fosse’s “Dancin’” formally opened at the Music Box Theatre.

Jordan Dobson plays along amiably as Charming’s younger brother, Sebastian, and Sami Gayle and Morgan Higgins are suitably shrill in the stock snarky stepsister roles.