Snow White (La Boite) – theatre review

Two Snow Whites in a week, both dark, sexy and totally entertaining, one a contemporary dance piece from Ballet Preljocaj and one from La Boite that combined opera, theatre, dance and even burlesque and audience participation. It was an odd combination but it worked splendidly and with technical brilliance to link the story it produced something beautiful to look at, fresh in ideas and magic in execution. It won a well deserved standing ovation from an enthusiastic opening night audience.

La Boite’s production was a spine-chilling look at the fairytale as told by a four characters: Snow White, her mother the Queen, the Woodsman with his axe and of course the magic mirror. The singing was superb, the acting just as good and he lighting and setting just perfect for the tale of jealousy, mother-daughter rivalry and the power of beauty and sex. It was a totally encompassing production that just blew the audience away with its power and passion.

The casting was just perfect with true beauty in both the leads as well as vocal versatility. Italian-born mezzo soprano Silvia Colloca was the Queen, vain and powerful and seduced completely by the mirror and dressed to kill. Full marks to designer Karen Cochet for the costumes. Vocally, even with the imperfect La Boite sound system, which is not really built for amplifying operatic voices, she was clear and tonally perfect – and sexy: the poor Woodsman didn’t stand a chance when she seduced him into killing her daughter.

Show songstress Stephanie Picket was Snow White, a sweetly innocent child who, with the aid of the seductive mirror turned into a brat of an adolescent who was in constant war with her mother and slowly took on her vanity. She was so true to modern life, all she needed was a smart phone. Baritone Michael Tuahine was the Woodsman, sworn to serve his monarch, but happily married. He was brilliant as he tried to refuse the Queen’s orders to murder Snow White and in his reluctant but inevitable slide into adultery with the wily queen. But even with the threats of blackmail, Snow White’s own attempt at offering her body in exchange for her life was too much for him and he fled.

Kanen Breen played the Mirror in a magnificent performance. He was as slimy a lounge lizard as you hope for and he smoothed the path to seduction and sedition with a smile, great tango dancing and no morals whatsoever. He was a figure who world crush Jiminy Cricket under his patent leather dance shoes in the blink of an eye. He was smiling assassin, evil personified and he did it all with a disarming bonhomie. I loved him and so did the audience. He reminded me somewhat of the sinister Master of Ceremonies from the musical Cabaret: all sugar and arsenic.

The story differed from the original – there were no dwarfs for one thing and for other the creators put a completely different spin on the disguised Queen and her poisoned apple. But it was logical if unexpected. Go and see it, because whatever angle you take on the show it is magnificent theatrical entertainment.

Company: La Boite & Opera Queensland
Venue: Roundhouse Theatre, Kelvin Grove, Brisbane
Dates: 3 – 24 September 2016

Eric Scott
For more of Eric Scott’s writings on theatre, check out Absolute Theatre