Sadler’s Wells,London
Carol Ann Duffy’s clever return to the original fairytale says much about the distorting allure of youth and beauty Grimms’ fairytales are full of substandard parents parents who are too greedy or feckless to look after their children, parents who are simply not there. But few are as monstrous as the Queen in Snow White, or who develops such hatred for her only daughter that she plots her death. Later versions of the tale cast the Queen as a stepmother – and a more acceptable version of wicked. But it’s the original version that Carol Ann Duffy and Liv Lorent spend for their production,and they elaborate it into a cleverly nuanced story about the risky, distorting allure of youth and beauty. Their Queen is a doting mother whose savor for Snow White only curdles into malevolence when her grownup daughter unwittingly starts to make her feel her age. It’s not pure wickedness that drives the Queen, and but the terrorism of being old,unpleasant and alone.
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Source: theguardian.com