I
just made a three-year-old cry... Or Cinderella made a three-year-old cry....
Actually, I guess it was my lack of Cinderella that made her cry.... I
just finished a performance (as Cinderella), signed some autographs for
little girls while still in my costume (as we always do), which at the
end of the show is a sparkly white tutu and tiara, and then went to the
dressing room thinking I'd signed for all the girls who wanted one. But
as I came out of the theatre in my jeans, with makeup wiped off and
hair down, there was a little girl I guess I missed with her mom. She
was so distraught about missing the chance to get Cinderella's autograph
that she and her mom had waited at the stage door for 15 minutes for me
to come out. When I finally did and her mom told me how much her
daughter wanted to meet me, I was so touched, and I smiled at her and
bent down to say hi... but she put her thumb in her mouth, backed up,
and said, "No! Not you! Cinderella! Where's Cinderella?" I told her I
was Cinderella, just wearing different clothes than what she'd just seen
me in, and she started crying and shaking her head "no," staring at me
like she was scared of me. I'm not sure if she was crying because she
didn't believe me and she wanted the REAL Cinderella, or because she did
believe me and I had just destroyed the myth and magic of Cinderella
for her. Either way, it almost made ME cry as she tugged her mom's pant
leg away from me and dissolved into a full-on crying fit.
But
wait... Isn't the whole point of Cinderella that she's just a normal
person? Doesn't it add to Cinderella's magic if she's just a normal
girl in jeans who gets transformed into the beautiful princess every
night? If she's always glittery and sparkly, then where's the magic?
When I went as Belle from
Beauty and The Beast for Halloween one
year, my Aunt Mary had to make my costume, because I wanted the
blue-dress-with-white-apron outfit, not the gold pastry puff prom dress,
but no one makes Belle's pre-transformation dress as a costume.... Oh
well. I guess that's not how three-year-olds think. Sometimes you just
want the fairytale. And I gave her an unwelcome dose of reality
instead. There's a reason Cinderella runs away at midnight and doesn't
let anyone see her as a normal person. And there's a reason all the
Disney princesses are wearing ballgowns in the final scenes of their
movies. I was caught after my carriage turned back into a pumpkin, and
the results were just what Cinderella feared they would be. I just hope
that little girl never goes to the ISO's Christmas
show and
then waits at the stage door for Santa Claus's autograph....
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