You might not think that the old adage “when the going gets tough, the tough get going” would apply to princesses and fairytales, but Knoxville Theatre Club’s JP Schuffman and Sara Gaddis might beg to differ. KTC’s latest offering shows that fairytales can come in many shapes and sizes and brings one of those classic tales back to its gothic roots. Cindy & Ella, Schuffman and Gaddis’s take on the classic Cinderella story, transports our beloved princess and her evil stepmother and stepsisters to 1930s-ish, Oklahoma-ish, in the midst of the Dust Bowl, a roughly ten-year period of drought, agricultural hardship, and economic depression that affected the US and Canadian prairie and Great Plains areas. The Wickets, a broken and restructured family marked by death and relocation, struggle with survival, threats from the urban outside, and internal greed and jealousy that threaten to uproot their existence. But in the family’s struggle to keep death and environmental catastrophe at bay, a little magic seeps in just when it’s needed, whether in the form of a shiny new pair of shoes, a jar of cherry preserves, or a tiny rodent friend who can keep the deepest of secrets. Directed by Schuffman, Cindy & Ella is a reminder that magic can thrive in the darkest of circumstances—all we have to do is search for it.
When audiences walk into Borderlands Playhouse, they are immediately met with the scent of fresh cut lumber, thanks to the gorgeous set by Schuffman–it’s an unexpected sensory experience that connects time, place, and plot in the immediate moment. Slats of wood create the interior of the Wicket family home, a scantily furnished rural homestead with gaps in the walls where the parched land and gorgeous sunsets of Dust Bowl-era Oklahoma seep through the cracks. Cut out of the wall at stage left is the outline of a giant tree, filled in with a patchwork cloth and illuminated from behind. And while the set is sparse, there is also an incredible attention to detail, from the ornate picture frames guarding faded, sepia portraits of days gone bye to an antique wall telephone near an old wooden rocking chair. The little details in this production help to tell the story just as much as the performers on stage.
Cindy & Ella is a quick little four-hander, featuring cousins-turned-stepsisters Cindy (Evie Brandt) and Ella (Abigail McCarter). Ella’s mother, Momma Gourd (Carol Goans) has recently married Cindy’s widower father for unsavory reasons—to take ownership of the Wicket farm, sell it, and send the poor troubled Cindy to the looney bin. But it’s not Cindy’s fault that her late mother speaks to her from beyond the grave and that she has befriended the scraggly rat Princeton that lives in the homestead walls; but for Momma Gourd and Ella, getting rid of Cindy and the old declining farm is the ticket to a better life in California. Luck seems to find Ella and Momma Gourd in the form of Andrew Price (Tyler T. Glover), a handsome and wealthy young man from Chicago who offers to buy the farm from the Wickets—but even Mr. Price’s offer might be a fairy tale, and one that does not end in happily ever after.
Overall, the production takes a little while to kick into gear, but once it gets going near intermission, it’s a powerful, non-stop buildup to the climax of the narrative. McCarter and Goans are a bit quick in their dialogue up front, and it feels rushed, especially in the early moments where exposition is established. Brandt’s moments monologuing with her deceased mother are poignant but also suffer from the quick shift from dialogue with McCarter and Goans to monologue, and some sort of tonal and locational shift could be signaled a bit clearer. Otherwise, each actor captures their character quite well, with Brandt’s whimsical yet wistful outlook as Cindy contrasting nicely with McCarter’s more snide girlishness that softens as she more fully comes to realize the circumstances of their situation and Momma Goad’s machinations. Goans, as she always does in such roles, owns her performance as Momma Goad, turning from the soft and sweet doting mother to Ella to a cruel, matriarchal oppression directed toward Cindy at the drop of a hat. And Glover cranks up the smarm as Andrew Price, superficially charming as Prince Charming turned slick salesman with an eye for profit and pleasure, regardless of who it hurts. He and McCarter have fantastic chemistry on stage, and he gives subtle hints that the short-lived romance is mostly one-sided and inauthentic; for Price, it’s merely part of the sale.
Cindy & Ella runs until April 25 with showtimes on Thursdays, Fridays, and Saturdays at 7pm and one matinee showing on Sunday, April 19 at 2pm. Tickets are available at the box office, located at 802 Sevier Avenue, or online at https://knoxvilletheatreclub.org/tickets.
