My garden of musings

He may have been most famous for Hill Street Blues, but to me he'll always be Prince Christoper in the original 1957 version of Rodgers and Hammerstein's Cinderella.

The time period of this version is the late medieval or Renaissance era.

Let's start with Cinderella's dresses before she's reduced to servitude.

Her usual costume in the film's early scenes is a simple, light-colored, innocent-looking dress. But she wears a black mourning dress in the months following her mother's death, and and a more ornate, apparently multicolored dress at her father's wedding.

Now for her rags...

The designers are strictly faithful to the Grimms’ description of their heroine’s clothes as “an old gray smock and wooden shoes.” This is the only screen adaptation I know that has Cinderella's rags be a long robe, much like in Thomas Sully's 1843 painting Cinderella at the Kitchen Fire, and with it she wears heavy wooden clogs.

Now for her ballgowns...

As in the Grimms' tale, there are three balls, and Cinderella wears a different gown to each one, though they're all similar in style. The first one has darker and bolder embroidery, the second has a lighter and softer design, and the third has an interesting netlike overskirt and sleeves studded with pearls.

As for the slipper....

It's neither glass nor pure gold, but a uniquely pretty design with an embroidered pattern.

As for her hair, her knee-length blonde locks are usually worn in long twin braids, but at the three balls, her hair is worn up in an intricate braided style that reaches the nape of her neck, with an elegant circlet.

Of course this happens; actors aren't their characters. But still, particularly when the character's death is the movie's most iconic scene, it's slightly surreal.

The 1936 version of Camille is most famous for its tragic ending where Greta Garbo's Marguerite dies in the arms of Robert Taylor's Armand. But in real life? Robert Taylor died fairly young and Greta Garbo outlived him by more than twenty years.

West Side Story has its tragic ending with Tony's death in Maria's arms. In real life for the cast of the 1961 version? Natalie Wood was murdered by her husband tragically drowned, Richard Beymer is still alive.

Love Story is known for Jenny's death in Oliver's arms. In real life? Ali MacGraw is still alive, Ryan O'Neal is gone.

Or Brokeback Mountain: Jack dies and Ennis lives, but Jake Gyllenhaal is still alive and Heath Ledger is gone.

Since I've been exploring Into the Woods, I've been thinking of one controversial aspect of the 2014 film version: the casting of real children, 12-year-old Lilla Crawford and 13-year-old Daniel Huttlestone, as Little Red Riding Hood and Jack.

Traditionally, onstage, both of these roles are cast with performers in their late teens or 20s. And there's an article online, easy to find in a Google search, which argues that casting the roles with real children was the film version's biggest mistake.

Let's leave aside any concerns about the demands of the music and just look at the issue from a dramatic perspective.

Now, it seems clear that Little Red is supposed to be a child in-universe: all the other characters call her a "little girl" and the Wolf's song to her is titled "Hello, Little Girl."

But there’s no question that “Hello, Little Girl” is full of double entendres and intentionally plays out like a seduction, even though in-universe, what the Wolf wants is to eat her. The subtext that adults can see in all versions of Little Red Riding Hood, with the Wolf as a symbol of a sexual predator, is very close to the surface in this musical. When she's played by a real 12-year-old, I'll admit that "Hello, Little Girl" becomes much more creepy than when she's played by a 16-year-old.

But then, maybe it's supposed to be that creepy.

And then there are Little Red's own feelings about the Wolf, as expressed in "I Know Things Now." This writer argued that when she sings of how the Wolf made her feel both "excited and scared," she comes across as a teenage girl who's just had a sexual awakening and learned the danger of giving in to the charisma of a "bad boy," and that this subtext gets lost when she's played by a 12-year-old.

Or does it? It's not as if preteen girls don't have those stirrings yet! The preteen years are when they start!

As for Jack, while the libretto calls him a "boy" and a "lad," it never specifies if he's a child or a teenager, just like the original fairy tale is vague on that point. The article I found argues that he's supposed to be a young man who's lived like a child for too long with his overbearing, overprotective mother, but who wants to be independent and have adventures, as he should at his age. Then, after his mother is killed, we're supposed to agree with the Baker when he tells him that it's time for him to start taking care of himself. (Although in the end he does still live with two adults, the Baker and Cinderella.) But if he's a child, then we can't agree: it's only natural that he should still be sheltered and taken care of. Besides (the article argued), if Jack is in his late teens, it becomes easier sympathize with his mother's exasperation at his stupidity and her occasionally smacking him around – if he's a child, she seems meaner and more abusive. In "Giants in the Sky," the lyrics about his time with the Giantess also have what might be sexual undertones. ("And she draws you close to her giant breast/And you know things now that you never knew before...")

Outside of this article, TV Tropes also points out that when Jack and Little Red are played by children, it makes the Baker and Cinderella seem much more cruel in "Your Fault" when they blame them (as well as each other and the Witch) for the Giantess's rampage. Though in all fairness, it is partly their fault, especially Jack's.

All these objections are valid. Yet at the same time, Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine were closely involved with the making of the 2014 movie, and though they were forced to compromise with Disney on some changes they disliked (e.g. omitting Rapunzel's death), I've never read any objection from them about the casting of Jack and Little Red as children.

In the Faerie Tale Theatre version, she ends up living with Jack and his mother and happily serving as their gigantic housekeeper, with no apparent hard feelings about her husband's death. (He was an annoying idiot, after all.)

In Into the Woods, she seeks revenge on Jack for her husband's death, and in her rampage she tramples the kingdom and kills innocent people until finally the protagonists band together to to slay her.