The smashing production that turns Cinderella on its head

Conventions and boring stereotypes are smashed - along with glass slippers - in this bold and brash modern retelling of the classic Cinderella story.

Notions of what constitute beauty, gender and family are turned on their collective head in Windmill Theatre’s new, contemporary musical repurposing of the Cinderella story.

Rella, as the show is called, actually tells the fairytale from the perspective of its traditional lead character’s ugly stepsisters.

“We really shift the lens, smash all of those stereotypes around gender and what beauty is, and what that fairytale is in terms of family and happy endings,” says Sasha Zahra, who joined Windmill as its new associate director last year.

When Rella and her two Samoan stepsisters “with really broad shoulders”, Afa and Sika, take their all-singing, all-dancing act on a TV talent contest, only Rella is offered a solo contract with Prince Charming Records and abandons her siblings for a shot at stardom.

Internationally acclaimed Adelaide cabaret and rock singer Carla Lippis plays Rella and has co-written the original songs, while Fez Faanana – who has performed at the Fringe for more than 15 years with Queensland based Briefs Factory – and Thomas Fonua (alias drag artist Kween Kong) will put their unique cultural spin on the stepsisters.

“They kind of go on this adventure of self-discovery, finding out about who they are and their culture – not looking at the exterior of the characters,” says playwright Tracey Rigney, who also brings her own Wotjobaluk and Ngarrindjeri heritage to the mix.

“It’s more about their internal self-belief, acceptance and understanding, and embracing their perception of who they are – not caring about how others perceive them.”

One of the things that is now seen as problematic with many fairytales and other traditional children’s stories is that beauty and ugliness were used to represent good and evil, with people’s outward appearances supposedly reflecting their inner personalities and values.

“With the two ugly stepsisters … I don’t think we really got a sense of that sisterhood connection in the original fairytale. But in this reimagining we really allow their relationship to be prime and centre,” Rigney says.

Fez Faanana, Carla Lippis, and Thomas Fonua in readiness for Windmill Theatre’s production of Rella, a modern Cinderella story. Picture: Matt Loxton

“It’s more about how they’ve got disappointment with Rella and her decision, and coming to realise that they are all family. That’s what is different to the original – this is focused more on sisterhood and family, and that is determined by our cultural lens on this story as well.”

Rigney grew up and once again lives in the Victorian town of Dimboola, itself the title of and setting for a famous 1969 play (and 1973 film) by Jack Hibberd. She knew of the play but not about its content, until she moved to study at the University of Melbourne and “stumbled upon the First Nations unit”.

“We called it the Koori Unit, a place where all students with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander ties would be. It was kind of like I found my family away from home.”

A NIDA graduate cousin of Rigney’s was also there, studying the history of black theatre.

“He opened up this world to me. I’ve always loved storytelling because my grandfather instilled in me from a very young age all the stories from our culture, from his life – all that oral storytelling – he never read me a book.

“He made boomerangs, then he’d get me and my brothers to paint these boomerangs. I’d just be sitting at his feet and he’d be telling all these stories.”

As well as her mother’s Wotjobaluk family, Rigney has Ngarrindjeri heritage from South Australia on her father’s side: “I love that country over there, it’s a beautiful culture, strong in language.”

She was concentrating on writing and directing film and TV (The Warriors, A Chance Affair), but had “just walked away from a massive project” when Zahra called out of the blue. The pair have known each other for more than a decade, since Rigney briefly lived in Adelaide working with Vitalstatistix and Carclew, and have continued developing another long-term project.

Internationally acclaimed Adelaide cabaret and rock singer Carla Lippis plays Rella and has co-written the original songs Picture: MATT LOXTON

“Sasha had started working on this idea for a play with Fez – who at the time I hadn’t met – and she was wanting to pull together a really diverse team of people to create this piece which looked at flipping the narrative of Cinderella.

“I was like, ‘Oh my god, yes!’ I felt like it was something the universe gifted me.”

Rigney says she gets to specifically inject a bit of her own cultural experience through the character of the stepsisters’ Aboriginal mother, Marlene, who will be played by Helpmann Award winner Elaine Crombie.

“But I’m all through it, because I’ve written it,” Rigney laughs. “I am First Nations, but I’m also a kid of the ’80s and a teen of the ’90s and I feel like it’s incorporating my experiences of growing up during those times. It is like a love letter to the ’80s and ’90s, because geez, they were banging decades!”

As the mother of a five-year-old daughter, Rigney also enjoyed creating her first play for younger audiences – although Rella is aimed at high school students.

“This other play that I’m writing is more for her age group, and it’s got puppetry and all that sort of stuff in it.”

Samoan culture has always acknowledged gender diversity with a recognised non-binary identity known as fa’afafine. An integral part of Samoan society, fa’afafine are assigned as male at birth but embody both masculine and feminine traits – the prefix faʻa meaning “in the manner of” and fafine meaning “woman”.

Thomas Fonua in costume for Windmill Theatre’s production of Rella, a modern Cinderella story in Adelaide, Friday, April 29, 2022. Picture: MATT LOXTON

“Fa’afafine has a sense of magic, has a sense of mothering, a sense of bigger sister,” says Faanana, whose own surname means “the way of calming a baby”.

“Growing up, I always had this equation in my head that I am half fa’afafine and half queer,” Faanana says.

“The idea of gender is complicated … I like to not prescribe to the western concept of male and female.”

Faanana had recently begun collaborating with Adelaide-based Fonua and his House of Kong.

“The sisters are a really great device for us to unpack some of these ideas about beauty and how fairytales can really speak to our young people.”

Creating the show brought Fonua and Faanana to think about their own development as young people.

“It’s not going to be protesting about what was hard … it’s potentially creating a notion that will speak to the diversity of our classrooms.”

In pantomime productions of Cinderella, the stepsisters have often been portrayed by male actors in drag – to heighten both their unattractiveness and the comedy associated with the roles.

“I actually totally forgot about that panto world, and the drag element that they bring to those characters – they are quite often a bit of scene stealer because of their ability to be so ridiculous and so over-the-top.”

Even for Faanana, the term stepsister instantly conjures an association with the word “ugly”.

“We’re trying to broaden the way we measure beauty. It’s about making sure that everyone has the ability of seeing beauty in its various forms.

“Cinderella has four female characters that make a family … especially here in Australia, it’s not that far fetched for a family to look like we do.”

Fez Faanana, who has performed at the Fringe for more than 15 years, says the production will challenge conventional notions of beauty. Picture: Matt Loxton

Zahra says the musical moments in Rella “are going to be pretty incredible”.

“Carla is a complete powerhouse. Thomas and Fez are movement artists as well … both incredible dancers. It very much was about how to bring out the incredible nuance that each of these individuals can bring in terms of what they are as artists, but also who they are as humans.

“That means that what we are presenting is something really authentic and beautiful.”

Rella is at the Dunstan Playhouse, May 26 to June 4. windmill.org.au