Cinderella

What if Cinderella were rewritten by Henrik Ibsen? George Calderon answers that question with this sly, irreverent pantomime that transplants the beloved fairy tale into the bleak world of Norwegian naturalism. Set on a cheerless heath overlooking a fjord, the play gives us Mrs. Inquest as the cruel stepmother, her daughter Hedda (engaged to the unfortunate Tesman), and the put-upon Hilda as the Cinder-girl herself. But this is no straightforward retelling: Calderon parodies Ibsen's gravity, his trapped women, his suffocating domestic cages, while quietly allowing the old fairy tale to assert its strange power. The result is a strange hybrid that both mocks and honors the master, recognizable enough to delight devotees of Brand and Hedda Gabler, yet mischievous enough to poke fun at their solemnity. Published posthumously in 1922, the play remains a rough draft, unfinished and unpolished, but alive with the kind of daring that only a genuine literary game can be.