Disenchanted: A Cabaret of Twisted Fairy Tales | Adelaide Fringe 2022 review
A cabaret makes free with some favourite fairy tales. The Big Bad Wolf may get a reprieve after all.
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Disenchanted: A Cabaret of Twisted Fairy Tales
Cabaret
Rating: ***½
The Garage International at Adelaide Town Hall
Until March 17
Singer-songwriter Eliane Morel has been touring her “twisted” cabaret around Australia for a few years now, by all accounts with much success. As the exotic Madame d’Aulnoy (complete with outrageous French accent) she revisits fables from Cinderella and Sleeping Beauty to the maiden-killing Bluebeard (La Barbe Bleue), but tells the stories from another perspective: Olga, one of Cinderella’s ugly stepsisters, for instance, or the Big Bad Wolf, who might not be so bad after all, or even one of Bluebeard’s late wives.
The show makes free with history – Madame is dressed in pre-Revolutionary chic with 19th century ruffles, her accompanist (Daryl Wallis as Couperin!) in baroque silk – but it’s all good fun.
Other incarnations of the show have apparently featured a projected salon that situates the tales, and this is absent in the no-frills meeting hall, more’s the pity, for as it is, the show struggles to maintain momentum.
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