Wednesday, March 12, 2008

One Ugly Sister, and Cinderella Goes to the Ball


Well, one ugly sister, and romantic fiction gets to attend the Oxford Literary Festival. I'll start with the ugly sister, and another reworking of the Cinderella fairytale. This one's written by Joanne Harris and is called "Ugly Sister (aka Grimm up North)." As the Ugly Sister says, "We - my sister and I- were born somewhere in Europe. Accounts differ. In any case, no-one cares much about our history. Or, for that matter, what happens to us when the curtain goes down. There's no ever-after for an Ugly Sister, let alone a happy. " But for those who do care, and who would like to know about her ever-after and whether she gets a happy, this is your opportunity to find out.

As for romantic fiction, she's getting a chance to take her place in the spotlight. "The Mills and Boon Centenary Debate: How Heroes and Heroines Have Altered in the last 100 Years" will be one of the many events taking place at the Oxford Literary Festival this year. Mills & Boon are sponsoring the debate as part of their centenary celebrations. On the panel are four authors of romantic fiction:

Nicola Cornick, who this year is celebrating 10 years and 25 novels with Harlequin Mills & Boon. Her Lord Greville's Captive was shortlisted for the RNA Romance Prize 2007.

Matt Dunn, who "is the author of two best-selling romantic comedy novels, Best Man and The Ex-Boyfriend's Handbook. He's also written on life, love, and relationship issues for a variety of publications, including The Times, Guardian, Sun, Cosmopolitan, Company, and Woman" (RNA). His The Ex-Boyfriend's Handbook was shortlisted for the Romantic Novel of the Year Award 2007.

Katie Fforde, who "awards the Katie Fforde Bursary in March of every year to a member of the New Writer's Scheme whom she feels is very close to being published" (RNA). Trashionista describe her as "One of the UK's best writers of country tales." Kathleen Bolton at Writer Unboxed has described Fforde's novels as "effervescent and bubbly, and above all, fun. [...] Katie’s novels on the trials and tribulations of women trying to find love manage to straddle the line between whimsy and heartache."

Joanne Harris, who in addition to being the author of "Ugly Sister (aka Grimm up North)" is rather better known as the author of Chocolat. As mentioned on her website, "Her books are now published in over 40 countries and have won a number of British and international awards. In 2004, Joanne was one of the judges of the Whitbread prize [...] and in 2005 she was a judge of the Orange prize."

The debate will take place on Thursday 3rd April 2008 at 6.30pm and will last about an hour. Tickets are £7.50 and include a glass of wine, to be drunk after the end of the debate. More information here, and details on how to order tickets here.


The picture is an illustration taken from a nineteenth-century edition of the Cinderella story. The other illustrations in the same book can all be found at Wikimedia Commons.

14 comments:

  1. Laura, I loved the Ugly Sister story. But I have one question. I know that in the opera La Cenerentola, and I think in the ballet, the ugly sisters and stepmother are male roles, as is, I believe, the Widow Twanky in the Aladdin pantomime. The story is set in a panto, so is she playing with the conventions, are they not male parts, or am I wrong?

    I think I've mentioned that I'm working on, vaguely, a story about the further adventures of Cinderella's stepsisters, especially the one whose godmother is a witch....

    I remember a delightful short-story version of Cinderella that I read in some British scholarly magazine--Essays in Criticism or the like. It was set at Oxford; the stepsisters were the daughters of a don and very much at home in academic circles. Cinderella, whom they were fond of, was lovely but a total bimbo with an IQ smaller than her bra size. They sent her to the ball with instructions to leave at midnight because they knew her beauty would dazzle the gentlemen; but supper was served at midnight and she'd actually have to TALK to them, which would ruin everything!

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  2. The story is set in a panto, so is she playing with the conventions, are they not male parts, or am I wrong?

    No, you're not wrong. Here's a brief history of pantomime dames and a description of what will tend to happen during a pantomime performance of Cinderella.

    According to the page about pantomime dames:

    Even after the restoration in the 17th century, when actresses entered the theatre, many were loathe to play older parts, and the convention continued. During the Regency the roles of witches, characters like 'Mother Skipton' and old harridans were played often by men, Grimaldi played several female roles, including the Baroness in 'Cinderella'. The Ugly Sisters at this time were played by women, later by men.

    Dame roles remained variable up until the 1860's and later.


    Traditionally the prince's role was often played by a woman:

    The other element of "Traditional" pantomime is the "Principal boy" role [played by a female] although the role is that of a boy hero. The female playing the principal boy usually dresses in short, tight fitting skirts [the shorter and tighter the better] accompanied by knee-high leather boots and fishnet stockings. This provided a marvellous opportunity, in ages past when female attire went down to the ankles, to display a shapely pair of limbs and to increase the male audience. It was very common in both Regency and Victorian extravaganzas, both of which played a part in the shaping of pantomime, for women to play, more or less, any male role that they fancied. (from here)

    However, I have the impression that things have been changing and the principal boy can now be played by a man, and in this performance of Cinderella there was a man playing the prince and at least one of the Ugly Sisters (Bella and Donna) was a woman.

    I'd give Joanne Harris a bit of leeway, not least because there's probably a bit of magic involved with these particular Ugly Sisters.

    It was set at Oxford; the stepsisters were the daughters of a don and very much at home in academic circles. Cinderella, whom they were fond of, was lovely but a total bimbo with an IQ smaller than her bra size.

    Yes, I can definitely understand the appeal of that version. Particularly to non-bimbo-ish, academic women.

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  3. Laura, thanks for the link to Harris's story -- as you know, I love revisionist versions of fairy tales!

    Have you ever noticed how history favours the lookers? Henry XIII: bad press. Richard Lionheart: good press. Catherine of Aragon: bad press. Anne of Cleves: good press

    That's where Harris definitely got her (hi)story wrong, though: after all, Henry VIII was supposed to be rather good-looking when he ascended the throne, it was only later when he became obese and suffered from a number of rather horrid ailments that he looked a mess.

    And Anne of Cleves? Whom Henry called "the Flanders Mare" when he met her for the first time? Uh-oh. No. I guess Harris must have meant Anne Boleyn, Henry's second wife for whom he divorced Catherine of Aragon and effected the split from the Church of Rome.

    The history nut, that's me.

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  4. I noticed this too, Sandra. But for some reason the story doesn't actually say Henry the Eighth, it's Henry the Thirteenth. So either Joanne Harris or the Ugly Sister has made a mistake.

    Henry XIII: bad press. Richard Lionheart: good press. Catherine of Aragon: bad press. Anne of Cleves: good press. Court painters have a lot to answer for

    Another thing to bear in mind is the reference to "court painters." Henry VIII (if it is him that Harris and the Ugly Sister are thinking of) looks fairly impressive, but not very handsome, in the court portrait of him done by Holbein. Katherine of Aragon also doesn't look very pretty in this portrait or this portrait (though she does look better in this picture).

    Anne of Cleves, however ugly she may have been, looks good in her portrait. You can see it here.

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  5. There was a tale that Anne's portraitist was infatuated with her -- as a result, he'd painted that portrait in a somewhat 'crystallised' state, that he painted her as his heart saw her. When the painting was presented to Henry as part of the sales pitch, Henry liked what he saw in the portrait -- but when he met Anne in person she failed to meet the expectations the painting had given him.

    An an aside, I'd always thought that Cinderella's step-sisters were unpleasant, not ugly. Over the years I'd read many versions and variations of that story, and have seen scads of illustrations from it, where they were depicted as beautiful but having ugly souls - and *that* was why they didn't get the happy ever after.

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  6. R., you're right: In Perrault's version the stepsisters are described as being less beautiful than Cinderella, though he never says outright that they're ugly. And according to the Grimms', their "faces were white and beautiful, but their hearts were black and ugly."

    Laura, I guess you should start calling me The Mole: it hasn't even registered with me that there's an "X" instead of the "V".

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  7. R, I'm not very knowledgeable about Anne of Cleves, but apparently the English ambassador, Wotton, "reported that Holbein had painted 'very lively' or faithful likenesses of both Anne and Amelia" (Warnicke 88).

    One reviewer of Warnicke's book writes that

    Warnicke lays to rest any notion that Anne was a "Flander's Mare," as Bishop Gilbert Burnet unkindly labeled her. By all accounts, even from those
    who were hostile to the marriage, Anne was a physically attractive woman, and the evidence suggests that Holbein's painting of her was a fairly accurate portrait.
    (Hamilton 169)

    As I said, I'm no expert on this, so I really can't say whether or not the portrait is a good likeness or not. But there does seem to be a general consensus that if she did look like the portrait then she would have been an attractive woman.

    As for the ugliness of the Ugly Sisters, I've only ever read about them as being physically ugly (as well as bad-tempered). Maybe it's because the versions I read/had read to me as a child were more recent than Perrault and Grimm ones and were more affected by pantomime and/or Disney?

    I guess you should start calling me The Mole

    I'd better not, or Talpianna will get cross with me! ;-) I think she would insist that she's the only Mole round here.

    Hamilton, Dakota L. "Review." Sixteenth Century Journal. 32.1 (2001): 169-171.

    Warnicke, Retha M. The Marrying of Anne of Cleves. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2000.

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  8. I think the one remaining part invariably played by a pantomime boy is Peter Pan, and that goes back to the Barrie play more than to traditional panto; wasn't it written for Maude Adams?

    Did you ever see the TV series HERCULES: THE LEGENDARY JOURNEYS, starring Kevin Sorbo? The best episodes got into various parodies. In one of them Michael Hurst, a distinguished New Zealand Shakespearean actor who plays Hercules' sidekick Iolaus, appeared as the Widow Twankey. I think that particular episode involved Hercules entering a dance contest (don't ask) and she was his dance teacher. I didn't recognize him at all and only figured it out by the cast list.

    Sandra: I think the real looker among Henry VIII's wives was Catherine Howard:

    http://tinyurl.com/2duu57

    Laura, I guess you should start calling me The Mole: it hasn't even registered with me that there's an "X" instead of the "V".

    I BEG YOUR PARDON! That title--and a glorious one it is!--is already taken. Your toes are toast, kiddo.

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  9. I think the real looker among Henry VIII's wives was Catherine Howard

    Tal, the digital alteration to that photo's very clever, but unfortunately it seems as though that portrait is no longer recognised as being of Catherine Howard. The original is in the collection of the National Portrait Gallery and it says on their website that it's of an "Unknown woman, formerly known as Catherine Howard." There are apparently also doubts about the identity of the woman in this portrait.

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  10. I BEG YOUR PARDON! That title--and a glorious one it is!--is already taken. Your toes are toast, kiddo.

    Oh gosh, how could I forget? I do apologize! I blame correcting exams -- it always turns my brain to mush. By the end of this week you can probably call me the March Hare. *g*

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  11. I know that in the opera La Cenerentola, and I think in the ballet, the ugly sisters and stepmother are male roles

    In panto and ballet, yes, but Rossini scored Clorinda and Thisbe as a soprano and mezzo-soprano. They (and Cenerentola) were sung by women at the 1817 premiere. There's no stepmother in La Cenerentola; it's a stepfather.

    In Massenet's 1899 Cendrillon, the prince was sung by a woman--a dark soprano voice. Modern performances generally use a tenor. I believe the older Cendrillon (1810) by Isouard was written for the same voices as Rossini's La Cenerentola.

    Panto and ballet can be more flexible in their casting, because no one has to sing those high soprano parts. I've seen a production with a wicked stepmother played by a tall man with an overbearing demeanor.

    The Prokofiev ballet choreographed for the Bolshoi (1945) relied on the Perrault story. There was a father and a wicked stepmother, and the stepsisters were off the wall but not ugly. However, Frederick Ashton re-choreographed the Prokfiev version for London just a few years later, and turned it into a comic ballet with the stepsisters played by men.

    I'm sure there are many other variations, but some of the major ballet versions haven't survived--choreography is difficult to preserve. Anyway--as you pointed out, the gender roles are definitely up for grabs.

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  12. IIRC, the lover in Rosenkavalier is also a breeches part.

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  13. Yes--Strauss wrote Octavian for a soprano, and Octavian's supposed to be a *very* young man. The princess (at the advanced age of 32) knows that he won't adore her for long.

    Wikipedia has a list of operatic breeches parts.

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  14. Ellis Peters, best known for her Brother Cadfael mysteries, often wrote music-themed mysteries, many of which featured members of the Felse family, before she started the Cadfael books. One of the singletons, FUNERAL OF FIGARO, involves murder onstage during the opera; the heroine is singing Cherubino.

    In another, WHERE THERE'S A WILL (apa THE WILL AND THE DEED), a company that has just performed ROSENKAVALIER is aboard a private plane that crashes in the Alps during a snowstorm. They are all related to or dependent on the famous singer who has just sung her farewell performance as the Marschallin. It is her will, and its unknown contents, that is the story's McGuffin. I can't recall if she actually dies in the book, or not. Must dig that out and reread it; it's excellent.

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