Douglas Carter Beane’s latest, Fairycakes, sounded fantastic on paper: the press release promised a mashing up of A Midsummer Night’s Dream with several traditional fairy tales. One of the sharpest wits of today, Beane penned such piercing satires as As Bees in Honey Drown, And the Little Dog Laughed, and The Nance, as well as the books for Xanadu and Lysistrata Jones. With a cast of Broadway vets like Julie Halston, Jackie Hoffman, Ann Harada, Arnie Burton, and journalist-humorist Mo Rocca, Beane’s comedy was sure to be a laugh riot, right? Wrong.
The central premise is kinda cute. The fairies from such beloved tales as Pinocchio, Cinderella, and Peter Pan are really the ephemeral folks in Midsummer. When their magical parents Oberon and Titania verge on splitting up, a scheme is launched to reunite them, but it results in mismatched liaisons among the fairy-tale denizens. The problem is Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine have already mined this basic concept with success in Into the Woods Beane sets up the gag of ill-suited lovers chasing each other, and then it gets repeated several times. The material may have worked for a 20-minute sketch, but at nearly two and half hours, Fairycakes is way too long and repetitive.
In addition, Beane should not have directed his own material. An objective stager might have advised cuts and tightened the pacing. Beane lingers on unfunny bits and allows the scenes to drag. There are some chuckles, mostly provided by Hoffman’s deadpan delivery, but these cakes can be passed by without regret.
