Christine Lesiak and Tara Travis in The Spinsters, Small Matters Productions. Photo by Ian Walker

By Liz Nicholls, 12thnight.ca

I’m late to the ball, but in the nick of time — it ends today — I caught The Spinsters. And I want to tell you about this highly unusual dark off-centre comedy (for the +14 crowd only).

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The stars of The Spinsters, the latest from the subversives at Small Matters Theatre, hail from the fairy tale repertoire. And they emerge from the wings of one its most durable stories of unregenerate upstaging, Cinderella.

As the title tips us, the siblings we meet in this kooky original created and performed by Christine Lesiak and Tara Travis did not get the handsome, eminently eligible Prince. Or even a minor small-p prince, or maybe a count or duke. Nope. And it’s not like the Prince had impossible standards, fixated as the guy was pretty much exclusively on shoe size. Not only that, the Ugly Stepsisters didn’t even get billing as top-drawer villains — much less back stories or voices, or even names.

Think about it: jealous, vain gold-digger stepmothers, rotten to the core, are everywhere in fairy tales. It does cross your mind, from time to time, that fairy tale fathers have terrible taste in women, but I digress. Snow White’s homicidal stepmother, for example, tormented by toxic vanity, tries to poison her in inventive ways. She’s memorable.

Tara Travis and Christine Lesiak in The Spinsters, Small Matters Productions. Photo supplied.

As for the daughters of vicious stepmothers? Nope. Cinderella’s Ugly Stepsisters are remembered exclusively for being unaccountably mean, the meanest siblings ever, to an annoyingly humble, hard-working, uncomplaining victim. The latter, who has occasionally raised feminist ire for being such a passive ninny, is a paragon who gets the handsome, eminently eligible Prince because she acquires a fancy ballgown (courtesy of a fairy godmother), and has small feet. How exasperating is that kind of cosmic unfairness? And what does it say about the Prince anyhow, come to that?

The fun of The Spinsters, both in the writing and the theatrical execution of Jan Selman’s production, is that it’s payback time. And, after an amusingly annotated shadow puppet theatre intro (directed by Jen Cassady), with a more official version of Cinderella — the step-sisters appear, anonymous no longer.

Tormentia (Lesia) and Atrocia (Travis) know how to make an entrance. They sail across the stage, spinning in magical eddies, in show-stopper gowns that seem, in the astonishing design by fairy godmothers Adam Dickson and Ian Walker, to have a showbiz life of their own. The step-sisters are like outsized figures in a high-glam music box, with jointed arms and moveable torsos, and a mysterious rolling mechanism (by Ian Walker) instead of legs under those elaborately tiered shirts. Who needs glass slippers anyhow? You feel sure this pair could glide up the palace walls, or into the audience to flatten skeptics, a veritable armada in party frocks. The witty choreography, hinged in the middle and full of snarky noblesse oblige arm gestures, is by Ainsley Hillyard.

Christine Lesiak and Tara Travis in The Spinsters, Small Matters Productions. Photo by Ian Walker.

Atop  these giant moveable wedding cake sisters are sculpted hairdos that swirl magnificently like icing (design by Dusty Hagerüd with Steven Snider). The limelight has been a long time coming: they are a sight to behold, and they know it. And they’re here, in middle age, to rub it in, reclaim the story that shunted them aside, dish the dirt on the little weasel who has upstaged them. They’re the underdogs of the feminist can-do narrative, the demi-mondaines of the sisterhood, so to speak.

We’ve been invited to a ball at their palace (yup, they bought it), for an evening of “spectacular spectacle” and “glamorous glamour” at “the ball to end all balls.”

“We’re thrilled you could make it,” they say, trying half-heartedly to conceal the gloat. “You’ve been here before, but not since we moved in…. We’re the bad bitches who bought the palace!” And “don’t you love what we’ve done with the place!”

The performances have the dynamic of a clown duo. And both artists are terrific comic performers, at ease interacting with the audience. Lesiak’s Tormentia, the elder of the two and the boss, is snarkier and more calculating about image and damage control. She’s made a name for herself in the field of “fantasy non-fiction.” Travis’s dimbulb Atrocia, a noted scrunchie designer, is scattier, more impulsive and digressive.  

And what emerges from the playful theatricality of the piece (the list of contributing theatre artisans is impressively long), their joint hosting squabbles, and a need for recognition that has gone unsatisfied for centuries, is a surprise I wouldn’t dream of revealing. Suffice it to say the surprise even surprises the characters, as their grand ball at the palace gets away from them in an unexpected way.

The show, which takes on Cinderella from an unusual angle, is ingenious, kooky, and fun. You have two chances today to catch it.

REVIEW

The Spinsters

Theatre: Small Matters Productions and Edmonton Fringe Theatre

Created by and starring: Christine Lesiak and Tara Travis

Where: Westbury Theatre, Fringe Theatre Arts Barns, 10330 84 Ave.

Running: through Jan. 27

Tickets: fringetheatre.ca