STAGE REVIEW : Exposed Exploitation in ‘Cinders’

Exploitation is at the hard core of Janusz Glowacki’s “Cinders” at Rancho Santiago College through Sunday. The setting is a Polish reformatory, where the imprisoned girls are linked as much by the selfish urge to exploit each other as by the desperation of their predicament.

The officials who control them, meanwhile, are less committed to rehabilitation than to preserving the illusion of rehabilitation. And when that’s done with, there’s always the thrill of power itself--these young inmates are ready-made targets for mental and sexual abuse.

Even the famous movie director who brings his crew to film a documentary about the reformatory’s clumsy in-house staging of “Cinderella” is tuned into these opportunities. He talks romantically about “pointing a finger” at the system but he will do anything to get eye-opening footage--even push the girls to violence and suicide.

Glowacki, a dissident Polish playwright probably best known for his “Hunting Cockroaches,” which ran at the Mark Taper Forum last year, is all for galvanizing his message through dirty realism, and “Cinders” can be a pretty soiled experience.

There are few sympathetic or humane respites here. But there is a tight grasp of power and perversity, and director Robert Golden Leigh realizes that that can be enough to hook you. This is not as subtle a treatment as it might be--Leigh seems to be leering nearly as much as provoking--but you do feel fully transported into this world of baby-faced brutality, which is enough of an accomplishment.

True, with its combination of innuendo and eroticism, “Cinders” at times comes across as no more meaningful than a bad prison flick. Girls eye each other and the movie crew boldly, and the talk is all about having sex, for as little as a pack of cigarettes. “Polish Babes Behind Bars.”

But in Glowacki’s defense, “Cinders” does move beyond the superficial and tries, however sporadically, to use sex as a metaphorical tool, an attempt to indicate how stripped of humanity these girls have become. When they calmly talk of the times they were raped and of the incest at home, then turn in a rage and harm each other, we get an idea of how their experiences have warped them. Sex for them is not a thing to be shared; it’s a weapon.

The movie director (Jeff Brown) realizes that, and instead of feeling genuine sympathy, he uses it to charge his documentary. When the inmate who plays Cinderella (Heidi Moore) resists exposing her inner self, he conspires with the reformatory’s deputy (Patrick McGowan) to force her to react.

She’s falsely accused of being a snitch, the other girls turn on her and her will cracks, with terrible results. The director gets great footage of the breakdown. The chain of exploitation is maintained.

The cast here is more than capable. Moore’s controlled performance suggests her character’s vulnerability, and McGowan is chillingly manipulative. Brown is adequate, although the portrayal could use more definition, especially in the scenes between the director and the deputy. Julie Chavez is menacing as the girl who lords over all the others, and Robert Brent Hardwick has some affecting moments as the weak but relatively sensitive principal who develops a bond with Moore.

Jenny Guthrie’s two-tiered set, depicting a sort of recreation room and an upstairs barracks, is a bit crowded, but effective considering the space limitations of the tiny Little Theatre. Karen J. Weller’s costumes and Kristan J. Clark’s lighting add to the show’s strength.

‘CINDERS’

A Rancho Santiago College production of Janusz Glowacki’s drama. Music by Richard Peaslee. Directed by Robert Golden Leigh. With Cole Andersen, Robert Brent Hardwick, Allen Harker, Tim Knapp, Matthew L. Scrivens, Arlo Gates Jr., Heidi Moore, Julie Chavez, Ramona Jackson, Joan Annan, Katinka Clements, Renee Basford, Angela Sanders, Jeff Brown and Patrick McGowan. Set by Jenny Guthrie. Lighting by Kristan J. Clark. Costumes by Karen J. Weller. Musical direction by Michael MacMullen. Plays tonight and Saturday at 8 p.m. and Sunday at 2:30 p.m. at the campus’ Phillips Hall Little Theatre West, 17th and Bristol streets, Santa Ana. Tickets: $4 and $5. (714) 667-3163.