Some gems from opera director Francesca Zambello's interpretation of Little Mermaid for a Broadway production:
- The mermaid ascends to the surface of the sea, her tail unfurling to reveal shapely legs. There is so much metaphor in that. It is like a rite of passage, her first menstrual cycle
- The wish-fulfillment element would give it broad appeal. Show me anybody in the world who hasn't wanted to be someone else. That's a universal theme. Everybody sees themselves as an outsider
- It was possible to interpret the little mermaid flight from the confines of the sea as a gay theme. The reality is that there are only two minorities who are born into families: disabled people and gay people. Every other minority is born of a family. That Ariel is an outsider in her own family connects...
- Mermaids have no genitalia. That's something you don't really think about until you work on mermaids, but then you think about it a lot.
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