Mercury’s ‘Soho Cinders’ is feel-good boy-meets-boy fairytale

Unusual twist on ‘Cinderella’ not often performed, but it has beauty to offer

Composer George Stiles and lyricist Anthony Drewe have made a career out of adding music to famous fairy tales such as “The Ugly Duckling,” “The Three Little Pigs” and “Mary Poppins” and bringing them to the stage.

In Mercury Theatre’s “Soho Cinders,” a show that received its world premiere in London’s offWest End in 2012 and has rarely been seen elsewhere since, the Cinderella story has been significantly reenvisioned. The show’s infrequent stagings are no doubt due to the nature of its reincarnation as a decidedly naughty modern musical rather than the quality of the work itself, which is arguably some of Stiles’ and Drewe’s best.

Nearly everything takes place on Old Compton Street — the seedy center of London’s gay scene — which has been significantly sanitized courtesy of Nicholas Thornburg’s simple and handsomely crafted Soho flat exterior and pull-out scenery, Michael Jarett’s colorful projections, and director Pierre-Jacques Brault’s artistic vision.

This vision populates the neighborhood with a young, affable and goodlooking ensemble of folks (Matthew Brightbill, Sophia Dennis, Sydney Mahon, Courtney Anne Nelson, Brandon Schumacher, Noah Vega, Brooke Vespoli, Jake Washabaugh and Bill Wetherbee) who wander through the city street in perfect synchrony to the rhythms of Washabaugh’s modern-dance choreography.

It is there that we meet our wide-eyed and goodhearted hero, Robbie (Mason Henning), while he is being evicted from his flat by his foul-mouthed, strip club-owning stepsisters, Clodagh (Amiee Collier) and Dana (Kelvette Beacham). He is also being squeezed out of the laundromat he runs with best friend Velcro (Kennedy Ellis), which is frequented by an adorable sidekick named Sidesaddle (Lynette Turner).

Robbie is romantically involved with London’s charming and clandestinely gay mayoral candidate, James Prince (Brian Marshall), whose faux-fiancé (Melissa Siegel) discovers Robbie’s glass slipper — rather, his lost mobile phone — while attending a political fundraiser staged by Prince’s two-faced campaign manager (Joe Monaghan) and his put-upon assistant (Meredith Aleigha Wells).

The show is infused with Stiles and Drewe songs that range from gorgeous ballads such “Gypsies of the Ether,” performed with pitch-perfect harmonies by Henning and Marshall, the torch song “Let Him Go,” beautifully sung by Siegel and Ellis, and an assortment of high-energy production numbers such, as “Spin,” that are brilliantly executed by the triplethreat ensemble. Everything is backed by a superb five-piece band under Eddie Carney’s direction.

Most remarkably, Mercury’s production finds a common ground for the often incompatible emotional realism of the story, its fable-based characters and the romanticized songs they tend to sing.

As such, it provides an effective platform for the contrasting but equally exceptional acting turned in by the thoroughly endearing Ellis as the supportive but long-suffering Velcro and the deliciously overthe-top comedy delivered by the scenery-devouring Collier and Beacham as the sex-driven stepsisters.

But this approach to the work also sacrifices some of its intended edginess, which undermines a secondary and rather sordid storyline that revolves around Robbie’s relationship with an older man (Paul Hoffman).

This is no great loss, considering the show’s happy-ever-after ending is the big payoff of this fractured and reconfigured fairytale, which nicely complements the production of “Disney’s My Son Pinocchio” that is running in repertory with “Solo Cinders.”

Most remarkably, Mercury’s production finds a common ground for the often incompatible emotional realism of the story, its fable-based characters and the romanticized songs they tend to sing.

DAREN STAHL PHOTOGRAPHY Mason Henning, as Robbie, and Kennedy Ellis, as Velcro, perform in Mercury Theatre Co.’s “Solo Cinders.”