MANSFIELD — What if the princesses didn’t live “happily ever after” in the ways made famous by the Brothers Grimm in their 19th-century fairy tales?
Find out this weekend and next at the Mansfield Playhouse with the Second Stage, for-adults-only production of “Wonderland Wives.”
It’s Disney royalty gone bad. Really badly.
Cinderella has dropped her glass slipper and picked up a knife and fork.
Belle’s beast has become, well, just an overweight redneck.
Prince Charming is far less than that.
Snow White may be awake, but is living a jilted woman’s nightmare.
Alice has gone deeply into the dark side of the looking glass.
Get the picture?
It’s a play written for mature audiences — with immature tastes.
(Photos from a dress rehearsal this week of “Wonderland Wives” on the Second Stage at the Mansfield Playhouse. The story continues below the photos.)
The cast for “Wonderland Wives”
Snow — Zoe Tracy
Belle — Mary Kettering
Cindy — Amanda Lyons
Rose — DeeDee Welshans
Bruce/Beast/Charming — Jeffrey Hutchison
Fairy Godmother/Alice/Magic Mirror/Queen — Hendrick Stoops
Director — Heidi Ankrum
Stage manager — Josh Carpenter
The adult-only show stages Nov. 15-26 and 22-23 at 8 p.m. each night. General admission tickets are $15. Tickets may be purchased online at https://www.mansfieldplayhouse.com/ or by calling the Mansfield Playhouse box office at 419-522-2883.
Director Heidi Ankrum and two members of her cast offer quick frames of reference for those not familiar with the play written by Buddy Thomas in 2016.
“I’ve been describing it as Disney Princesses meet (MTV’s) Jersey Shore,” Ankrum said before a dress rehearsal Monday night.
Jeffrey Hutchison, who plays multiple characters, called it, “A Disney Princess movie that Deadpool has been producing.”
Zoe Tracy, who plays Snow, said of the comedy, “Imagine if the writers of South Park wrote a play about Disney princesses — 20 years later.”
The show is saturated with puns, one-liners, and blue language that would make any magic carpet blush. These Disney princesses act more like very-desperate housewives instead of storybook icons.
“I really like fractured fairy tales that take twists on traditional fairy tales,” Ankrum said when asked why she wanted to direct the show.
“And this one is pretty funny. It’s twisted. And there are some very inappropriate parts in it. But I still think it’s funny and people will get a kick out of it,” she said.
“There is some bad language, but it’s not super aggressive, I don’t think,” said Ankrum, returning to the directing role for the first time since “Exit Laughing” in 2022.
The 28-year-old Tracy, a 2014 Lexington High School graduate, returns to the Playhouse stage for the first time since performing in youth shows at the East Third Street community theater.
Now the mother of two young children, Tracy said she was intrigued by the idea of Disney princesses and a different story arc.
“I’m like a Disney princess that is older and dealing with life,” she said with a laugh. “All of my friends tell me I have a Snow White personality.”
Tracy doesn’t plan to be gone from the stage so long this time.
“I am having a great time … the time of my life,” she said.
Armed with a independent license in social work, Tracy said she has seen the issues with which the princesses are dealing.
“All of the characters in this show could probably use some therapy,” she said.
Hutchison, 24, was on the Mansfield Playhouse Second Stage in May in “Crimes of the Heart.”
The challenge for him in “Wonderland Wives” is playing three different characters, all of whom have different accents and intentions on stage.
“It’s been a learning process for me,” said Hutchison, a social work student at OSU-Mansfield who plans on graduating in just over a year.
“I enjoy doing a good comedy and they usually have some pretty good comedies down here (on Second Stage),” said Hutchison, already cast in the next show at the Playhouse, “It’s a Wonderful Life: A Live Radio Play,” next month.
