Review: ‘Cinderella’ hits the stage with pop songs, Morgan Fairchild, Disney stars and a bit of ‘Glee’

Panto, short for pantomime, is a family entertainment popular at Christmastime in Britain since the 1700s — and more recently here at the Pasadena Playhouse, where Lythgoe Family Productions has presented a holiday panto since 2012.

The formula may sound dissonant to the uninitiated — classic fairy tales set to contemporary pop songs, with plenty of cross-dressing, mildly risqué one-liners and audience interaction — but it is cleverly calibrated to entertain young children and their parents.

Like its predecessors, this year’s entry, “A Cinderella Christmas,” features a script by Kris Lythgoe, direction by Bonnie Lythgoe and choreography by Spencer Liff. (Bonnie is the ex-wife of “So You Think You Can Dance” creator and judge Nigel Lythgoe; Kris is their son and his wife, Becky, is a producer and casting director here.) Musical direction is by Michael Orland of “American Idol,” and the cast is studded with veteran and rising TV actors.

Lauren Taylor of the Disney Channel’s “Best Friends Whenever” stars as Cinderella, Kenton Duty of Disney’s “Shake It Up!” plays Prince Charming, Morgan Fairchild of “Falcon Crest” and “Dallas” fame is the wicked stepmother Baroness Hardup, and Alex Newell (Unique on “Glee”) makes the Fairy Godmother into a glamorous drag diva. The stepsisters, Hollywood and Vine, are also played by men, Ben Giroux and Josh Adamson, who preen with delusional vanity in ghastly makeup and ever-more-arresting fashions.

“Boo whenever you see the stepsisters,” a character named Buttons (the very tall, affable Matthew Patrick Davis) advises the audience. Buttons is our guide to the rules of participation in this theatrical landscape. He introduces himself as a servant at Hardup Hall, as well as Cinderella’s best friend, protector and would-be love interest, but his most important job onstage is to encourage the audience to join in. Whenever Buttons bounds on and yells, “Hiya, gang!” everyone is supposed to shout back, ‘Hiya, Buttons!” (Note: If you think your child would be tempted to shout back something ruder, he or she is possibly a teenager and not part of the target demographic.)

“Cinderella” is well-trodden territory, even for kids, and Lythgoe’s version of the tale certainly doesn’t play up the suspense. Several of the plot elements turn out to be red herrings, like a sequence in which Prince Charming switches roles with his manservant, Dandini (Davi Santos), for an afternoon, leading to nothing more dramatic than a moment or two of mild confusion.

More intrusively, the subplot about Buttons’ unrequited love for Cinderella is just a straight-up bummer. Some of us may have mixed feelings about Buttons, but nobody needs to see him get his heart broken.

Even when the plot moves in more traditional ways, it can seem to be dragging its heels, hoping to fit in another pop hit or interactive bit. Among the musical offerings are some clear winners: Meghan Trainor’s “No,” for example, sassily performed by the stepfamily to explain how they rebuff their hordes of unprincely suitors; Lorde’s “Royals,” which Buttons croons at a dark moment to reconcile Cinderella to a life without the prince; and a pretty mash-up of Roxette’s “It Must Have Been Love” and Billy Joel’s “She’s Got a Way” performed by Cinderella and Prince Charming. (Both leads have decent voices, Taylor’s particularly sweet and pleasing, but both occasionally slip off key).

Other choices are more questionable, as when Cinderella performs “9 to 5” to lament her chore-filled days, or “A Moment Like This” from a long-ago season of American Idol.

For all the care that has been lavished on this production, its best sequence is unscripted: a scene at the end when the children whose parents have paid extra for Golden Tickets are called up onstage and interviewed by Buttons.

The rapport with the audience that Davis has spent the show nurturing really pays off here; he handles the stage-struck children’s replies, which range from stony silence to oversharing, wittily and affectionately. It would take a serious curmudgeon to resist this testament to the power of live theater.

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“A Cinderella Christmas”

Where: Pasadena Playhouse, 39 S. El Molino Ave.

When: 7:30 p.m. Tuesdays through Fridays; noon, 4 and 7:30 p.m. Saturdays; noon and 4 p.m. Sundays (check for exceptions and additional matinees)

Tickets: $25-$125

Info: (626) 356-7529 or www.pasadenaplayhouse.org

Running time: 2 hours, 10 minutes

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