Cinderella
Belvoir presents
Cinderella By MATTHEW WHITTET Original Concept & Director ANTHEA WILLIAMS Belvoir’s production of Cinderella opened at Belvoir St Theatre on Saturday 15 November 2014. Set & Costume Designer ELIZABETH GADSBY Lighting Designer MATTHEW MARSHALL Composer & Sound Designer KELLY RYALL Stage Manager ELIZABETH ROGERS With Richard / Ash MATTHEW WHITTET Ashley MANDY McELHINNEY
THANK YOU Ian Garrard (STC Lighting) PHOTOGRAPHY Brett Boardman DESIGN Alphabet Studio
Writer’s Note Matthew Whittet There are countless versions of Cinderella. She’s had many names over the last 1,200 years. As an idea she’s spoken to many different cultures. A lot of Cinderellas carry traces of one another: a dead mother, an absent father, animals that transform, a shoe, some horrible sisters, a powerful older woman who does amazing things, and a young woman who is somewhere she doesn’t deserve to be. These elements have been moulded and twisted and transformed over the years. They’ve served as folktales and as fairytales; warnings to young children and as idealistic dreams for young girls. Depending on who tells the story and where they are from, the underlying meaning is often mutable. But still at the heart of it is this young woman. One who wants to be free from the place she finds herself in – the place that society puts her in. Of the many versions I’ve read, one in particular really struck a chord. In Vasilisa the Beautiful, a Russian folktale from around the 18th century, eight-year-old Vasilisa is sitting with her mother on her deathbed. Her mother turns to her, says she’s dying and hands her a doll – an ordinary cloth doll. She tells her it’s a mother’s blessing. Always keep it with you and don’t give it to anyone. Keep it secret. If you’re ever in trouble, feed the doll and ask it for advice. It’ll give it to you. It will always help you. And then she died, leaving the girl alone in the world to face her absent father and his horrible new wife.
This was the first time I ever understood the heart beating under the surface of the story; that unlike the grief that led Hamlet to madness, Vasilisa had a grief that became her greatest strength. It was her secret and she knew how to talk to it. Something similar can be found in the Brothers Grimm version, Aschenputtel. A tree grows on the grave of her mother, fed and watered with her tears. Angela Carter’s modern retelling turns that grave into an open wound in the earth that the girl steps into, turning the coffin into a chariot in which she rides into the world to seek her fortune. Depending on the focus, where you chose to look, the story of Cinderella can always transform. It can become one of brutal violence, of moral redemption or of glittering fancy. Ours is of now. It’s not a panto. It’s not about princes and princesses. It’s about a single woman in her early 40s trying to go on a date, and a single guy who has an unreasonable fear of not being heard over loud music in bars. There may not be any ugly sisters, but there is the occasional mysterious animal. There’s midnight. There’s a shoe. There’s dancing. There’s transformation. There’s a mother who is no longer alive and a father who’s long absent. And there’s the back catalogue of Hall and Oates. Just what any credible modern version of Cinderella needs.
Director’s Note Anthea Williams Much as I can be a tragic romantic, at first I was interested in addressing the Cinderella myth partly because I wanted to react against it. Cinderella is the most far-reaching and pervasive story women and girls are told about their lives, but, to me, in the Charles Perrault and Disney versions Cinderella feels painfully inactive: As women if you are beautiful, dutiful and good you will be rewarded with true love and wealth. Quite the opposite of the male hero celebrated for being brave, standing up for what is right and actively claiming what he believes
he’s worth. But will women really get what they deserve unless they claim it, without leaning in? As Matt and I researched the folktales and myths that predated these more recent versions of the story, a different woman emerged from the ashes. This woman was often industrious and brave, dealing with the sorrow of losing her mother while growing her skills and being true to her own values or challenging powerful spirits. It seemed that an earlier version of the story about death, renewal and power had been hijacked. I realised that while there were parts of the story I took issue with, other sections were both inspiring and beautiful. The idea that the most lowly and unhappy can transform, and can be transformed by love. Our Cinderella was always going to be a contemporary story about adults, not adolescents, and I was interested in exploring a male as well as a female Cinderella character. In fairytales for children, the internal conflicts are often personified through the other characters – their journey is through a forest, or on the way to a ball. But in our story for adults, in many ways, the most significant journey is an internal one.
Biographies MATTHEW WHITTET Writer / Richard / Ash Matthew is a playwright and actor. He graduated from NIDA’s acting course. Matthew’s writing credits include Old Man and the upcoming Seventeen (Belvoir); Fugitive, School Dance, Girl Asleep, Big Bad Wolf (Windmill Theatre); and Harbinger (Brink Productions). His one-man show Silver (B Sharp), which he wrote and performed in, won the 2010 Philip Parsons Young Playwright’s Award. For Belvoir, Matthew has performed in Conversation Piece, The Book of Everything, The Threepenny Opera, The Underpants, King Ubu and As You Like It. Matthew’s other acting credits include The Wonderful World of Dissocia, Metamorphosis, Endgame, Fireface (Sydney Theatre Company); Hamlet, King Lear (Bell Shakespeare); Moving Target, The Ham Funeral (Malthouse Theatre); and The Department (STCSA). He also has extensive film and TV credits as an actor; some of his film credits include The Great Gatsby, Sleeping Beauty, Australia and Moulin Rouge!. Matthew is currently a 2013/2014 Sidney Myer Creative Fellow.
ANTHEA WILLIAMS Original Concept / Director Anthea is Belvoir’s Associate Director – Literary. She trained at the Victorian College of the Arts (Directing) and the University of New South Wales. For Belvoir, Anthea has directed Forget Me Not (Tom Holloway) and Old Man (Matthew Whittet) and has been dramaturg on a number of works including This Heaven (Nakkiah Lui) and Small and Tired (Kit Brookman). Prior to joining Belvoir in 2011 Anthea was Associate Director bushfutures at London’s Bush Theatre, where her directing credits include Two Cigarettes, 50 Ways to Leave Your Lover, 50 Ways to Leave Your Lover at Christmas, Turf, suddenlossofdignity.com, and the musical The Great British Country Fete. Anthea’s work toured Britain extensively, including to The Drum Theatre Plymouth, The Ustinov Bath, The Tobacco Factory Bristol, the Norwich Playhouse, North Wall Arts Centre Cambridge and the Latitude Festival. Her other directing credits include A Question (nabokov); The Real You (SmackBang); and Quiet (Fontanel). Prior to working at the Bush Theatre, Anthea was the Co-Artistic Director of SmackBang Theatre Company and the producer of Massive Company, both in Auckland, New Zealand. ELIZABETH GADSBY Set & Costume Designer Elizabeth holds a BFA (Painting) from The National Art School and a BDA (Design) from NIDA. She has been an artist-in-residence at ArtLab San
Servolo, Venice; Galerie der Kunst, Berlin; and Underbelly Festival 2007 and 2008, Sydney. Her design credits include Faust: part one, Cloud 9, Woyzeck (NIDA); Bach Coffee Cake (Little Baroque Co/London Handel Festival 2013, BREMF 2014); Much Ado about Nothing (Sport for Jove); Epic Fail (PIAF 2014, WA Ballet); Ecobots (Buzz Dance Theatre); Plain Jane (Buzz Dance Theatre, Awesome Festival); The Old Maid and the Thief, The Impressario (Sydney Conservatorium of Music); and the costume design for The Boat People (The Hayloft Project/Tamarama Rock Surfers). Elizabeth’s production design credits include the short film Jack Off; music videos Alone (Songs) and Pan (Taxidermy Hall); and Bard’s Birthday Bash (Google/Bell Shakespeare). She is a current recipient of an Art Start Grant from the Australia Council for the Arts. MANDY McELHINNEY Ashley Mandy’s theatre roles include Forget Me Not (Belvoir); Dreams of White (Griffin Theatre Company); In the Next Room (or The Vibrator Play), The Beauty Queen of Leenane, The Great, Don’s Party, Kafka’s Metamorphosis, A Streetcar Named Desire (Sydney Theatre Company); The Hypocrite, Don’s Party, Life After George, Pride and Prejudice, The Herbal Bed (Melbourne Theatre Company); This Way Up and Holy Day (Malthouse Theatre). On TV, Mandy has appeared in Love Child, Paper Giants 2: Magazine Wars, A Moody Christmas, Howzat: Kerry Packer’s War, At Home with Julia, Bed of Roses, MDA and Comedy Inc. Her feature films include Ned Kelly and The Bank. Mandy received the 2012 AACTA Award for Best Supporting Actress in a Television Drama for her role in Howzat: Kerry Packer’s War. Mandy has been a proud member of Equity for over 20 years.
MATTHEW MARSHALL Lighting Designer Matthew graduated from WAAPA in 2000 and since then has designed for theatre, opera and dance. For Belvoir he has designed Oedipus Schmoedipus and Forget Me Not. Matthew’s other theatre credits include Gotterdammerung – Twilight of the Gods, Candide (Perth International Arts Festival); The Women with Dog’s Eyes, Between Two Waves (Griffin Theatre Company); The Wharf Revue 2009– 2014, Sex with Strangers (Sydney Theatre Company); New Breed (Sydney Dance Company); Ngurrumilmarmiriyu, This Is Our Youth, Little Orphan Trashley (Sydney Opera House); La Traviata (OZ Opera); Cinderella (Opera Queensland); Smoke and Mirrors, Trocadero Dance Palace, Misanthropology, iOTA Young, Hard and Solo (Sydney Festival); Tender Napalm, Blackbird, The Ugly One, The Goat (Perth Theatre Company); Fat Swan, Diamonds Are for Trevor (Showqueen); Anatomy of an Afternoon, Slow Dances for Fast Times (Performing Lines); The Language of the Living (NZ Dance Company); Day One, A Hotel, An Evening (Black Swan State Theatre Company). Matthew received a 2012 Helpmann Award nomination for Best Lighting Design for The Red Tree (Perth Festival/Barking Gecko Theatre Company). In 2014, Matthew has been mentoring technical production students at NIDA. ELIZABETH ROGERS Stage Manager Elizabeth graduated from the Wesley Institute in 2007 with a Bachelor of Drama (Production). Since then she has worked in theatre and on various musicals and children’s shows both in Australia and abroad. Among her credits are Oedipus Rex (Belvoir); The Rocky Horror Show (TML Enterprises, Australasia tour); Barney’s
Space Adventure (MEI, Middle East and Asia tour); Xanadu (Xanadu the Musical, Docklands); A Chorus Line (TML Enterprises, Australasia tour); and Freud’s Last Session (Strange Duck Productions, Theatre Royal). KELLY RYALL Composer & Sound Designer Kelly is a composer, musician and sound designer for theatre, dance and film. His compositions have featured in Nora, Hedda Gabler and Love Me Tender for Belvoir and Thom Pain (based on nothing) for B Sharp/Arts Radar. Other recent theatre productions include composition and sound design for Tartuffe, Macbeth, Phèdre (Bell Shakespeare); Emerald City, The Floating World, The Boys, And No More Shall We Part, Dreams in White (Griffin Theatre Company); Mercury Fur (Griffin Theatre Company/Little Death); Don’t Say The Words (Griffin Theatre Company/Tasmanian Theatre Company); The Shadow King (Malthouse Theatre/Sydney Festival/Perth Festival); One Night The Moon (Malthouse Theatre); Rupert, The Crucible, On the Production of Monsters (Melbourne Theatre Company); and The Trial (Malthouse Theatre/ Sydney Theatre Company/Thin Ice). Kelly’s recent projects include: for Aphids, Finale, a film project for the drive-in cinema, Forever Now, a contemporary voyager record project and Against the Tide (Once Here), a site-specific sound installation for Sydney’s waterways.
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