MEDIA LOG 4.4 “On the Steps of the Palace” (sung by Kim Crosby) from Into the Woods Context: Into the Woods is a musical combining several fairytales into one story. Among these is Cinderella, and this song comes after she runs from her prince and leaves a gold slipper “by accident” at the palace. Probably one of the most widely-told fairytales in existence, Cinderella is a story about a girl who has things happen to her: she is bullied, she is given a magnificent ball gown, and she is chased away and hides from Prince Charming until he finds her using a slipper that she accidentally leaves behind on the steps of the palace. Perhaps the only thing we can truly say she did for herself was to wish to go to the ball. The fairytale itself is rigid and tradition in the gender roles and traits that the characters embody: no liberation for anyone, when you think about it. What makes Into the Woods’ interpretation of the story so interesting is that Cinderella actually decides to leave her slipper on the steps of the palace instead of dropping it by accident. On the point of deciding whether that action in itself is liberating or not, we must first ask this: Is she letting or is she allowing the prince to find her? “To let” denotes some passiveness; “to allow” is to give permission. She leaves the decision to the prince entirely of her own volition, rather than by circumstance. In a sense, it can be said that this interpretation of the fairytale is liberating, if only because Cinderella actually has some semblance of control over the situation and manipulates it in some way, though this may be seen as restricting too, considering that she ultimately leaves the prince with the decision of finding her. But it deviates from our original understanding of the story: here, Cinderella has the choice to allow him some way to find her, and she takes it. That makes a lot of difference.
Posted on: Sat, 27 Jul 2013 14:25:05 +0000
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