Jason's Stage Review - Cinderella! But, mostly a complaint about dumb parents.

I am a proud season ticket holder at the Paramount, a beautiful theater in downtown Seattle where professional Broadway troupes frequently bring their touring shows.

Most recently, Kim and I took Desmond to see Cinderella!

My review: It was great! I love fairy tails and princesses (which is probably the reason why 60% of my college buddies thought I was gay...the other 35% being because I love Madonna and the remaining 5% being something to do with the fact that I wore a belt...because only gay dudes where belts, or something).  I was very much looking forward to this show.  Now, this wasn't the Disney version. It was Rogers and Hammerstein.  This means that there was no Bibbity Bobbity Boo happening.

Still, it was great.  Much better than the Disney cartoon, actually.  I am curious if the live action movie coming soon from Disney will incorporate some of the things from the musical, which I assume takes from the original story, which I have never read.

For example, the Prince was a full character.  Not just a dude that dances with Cinderella and then tracks her down to marry her.  We learned about who he was, what kind of king he wanted to be, etc.  He had his own songs and dance numbers and he became much more than the guy holding the ball.

Also...the step family.  Mom was still, obviously, horrible to Cinderella.  But, she and one of the step sisters were actually quite funny!  Like, really funny!  The other step sister was also played very well, only she wasn't at all wicked.  In fact, she was really great to Cinderella, even giving her a dress at one point.

There was a bit of back story around how the kingdom's poor were being oppressed by the dude running the kingdom until the Prince came of age and junk.  I didn't really care about all that.  It wasn't bad, I just didn't care.  I wanted more dancing and fancy dresses and junk.

Easily, my favorite part were the dress changes!  Also different from Disney, there are 2 different "Cinderella gets a pretty dress" scenes.  There is also an additional one where the fairy godmother transforms from a crazy peasant woman into the fairy godmother.  Now, for costume designers like my buddy Joey, perhaps this is actually quite easy to pull off.  But, they made it look AMAZING.  Here is an example from YouTube.  Go to the 2 minute mark:




So, overall quite good!  But, this review is turning out too long.  What I REALLY want to do is complain!

You see, the Paramount (as my dad can attest to as he does not like the Paramount) does not have the best seating in the world. If you are sitting on the Main Floor, which we were, there is practically no incline to the floor.  Meaning, that the seat in front of you is almost on the exact same level as your seat.  Mean that there is another head right in front of you.

Now, when you are 6 years old and a little more than 4 feet tall, this kinda sucks.

However, the Paramount does what they can to help with this by offering large, cushioned booster seats.  When you are doing a show that appeals so much to children, though, these boosters go very fast.  We got there about 20 mins early, and all the boosters were already gone.

Immediately next to Kim was a women with 2 teenage girls.  I am assuming she was the mom and she was with her daughters.  Her daughters appeared to be about 14.  Or, a very tall 13.  In fact, one of them was taller than Kim.  Not like that's hard.  But, it makes the point I am getting to even more potent.

One of the 14 year old girls was sitting on a booster seat.  The mom was holding another in her lap.  I didn't notice this until Kim pointed it out to me.  Desmond is sitting next to me, very low in the seat compared to the much larger people around him.  The person in front of him was the shortest option to sit behind, but she was still much taller than Desi (and she had a booster seat).  After Kim points out the booster seat in mom's lap, I lean over and politely ask,

"Excuse me...will you be using that booster?"

"We're not sure yet." comes the apathetic response.

"Oh. Ok."  I say, because I am obsessively polite and like to avoid conflict.

Once the show starts, mom gives the booster seat to her other 14 year old.

What the Eff, woman!  Here, my 6 year old sits well below the site line for your show and you 2 selfish girls and your selfish mom go on as if nothing is wrong with this picture?  Maybe you can fill in for the wicked step sisters next time!!!!

Kim and I proceeded to do what we do best when we're annoyed.  We made loud, unapologetic passive aggressive comments about how hard it must be for 14 year old girls to attend the theatre when they are only 5'4" tall and how it sucks to be a 6 year old who can't see when there are much taller people around taking up all the booster seating.

Next show is Phantom.  Kim has never seen it.  I, of course, have a history with Phantom which I will someday share with the 1.5 readers who don't already know it.

Stay classy, Seattle!