THE CUTTING EDGE : How Dorothy Hamill Has Put Life Into Ice Capades

Yet another Ice Capades show glided into town this week, but don’t let its title mislead you.

According to its star, American figure-skating icon Dorothy Hamill, “Cinderella . . . Frozen in Time” is anything but a blast from Ice Capades past.

The variety show format is gone, the casts are smaller and more highly skilled, and the whole shebang is packaged by a design team that includes some of the top names in the world of theater, dance and ice.

There’s also a new owner calling the shots. Hamill.

“Cinderella,” which continues its five-day run through Sunday at the Anaheim Arena, is the premiere production of what is now billed as Dorothy Hamill’s Ice Capades. The original Ice Capades company, which had been in operation since 1940, was purchased out of bankruptcy last June by Dorothy Hamill International.

The Southern California run, which also stops in Los Angeles and San Diego, features Hamill in the title role and British pairs champion Andrew Naylor as the prince.

Speaking by phone from her headquarters in Scottsdale, Ariz., Hamill said audiences that are willing to give her new venture a try will be rewarded with “really quality ice entertainment” that blends high-caliber ice skating with elements of live theater and dance.

There are comic touches as well, mostly stemming from the broad physical humor of the stepsisters (male skaters in drag) and Buttons, Cinderella’s impish sidekick. The story, based on an old English version of Charles Perrault’s original fairy tale, is told almost entirely through music and movement.

Hamill said the new company’s two touring casts feature some of the world’s finest skaters performing triple jumps worthy of the Olympics. Helping to create that theatrical setting are choreography by skater Tim Murphy, an original score by film and television composer Michael Conway Baker and costumes by Tony-winner Desmond Healy.

A skater since age 6, Hamill came to international attention in 1976 when, at 19, she won the gold medal in figure skating at the Winter Olympics in Innsbruck, Austria. With that and the World Championship gold medal to her credit, she signed on as a headliner with Ice Capades and spent nine years with the company. Since then, she has performed in and produced skating shows of her own, including two “Nutcracker on Ice” specials for television.

A self-described veteran of “just about every ice show that has ever been in the last two decades,” Hamill returned last year for a stint with Ice Capades. Older and wiser as a performer and a producer, the skater saw the show as a potential vehicle for change.

“I was often frustrated as a performer by not always getting quality things to do,” recalled Hamill, who said the pageantry-heavy exhibition format was particularly limiting to skaters. “You only got four minutes to go out and do your stuff; you never felt you were part of the show.”

All of that is changing. One of her inspirations in developing her new company has been the work of John Curry, considered by many to be the first to marry the aesthetics of dance with the fluidity and speed of figure skating with his company, the John Curry Skaters.

Curry, who announced last October that he has AIDS, has retired from the public eye to his home in England.

“John Curry had a wonderful skating company that was critically acclaimed by the dance world,” Hamill said. “Last year, when I came back to Ice Capades, I thought what a tragedy his dream couldn’t continue, that people shouldn’t see that anymore.”

In the new Ice Capades, cast members work together as a company, taking classes daily and continuing to learn skills on the road to enhance their performances. During the show, principal characters spend almost 90 minutes on the ice, but Hamill has heard no complaints.

“The kids,” as the 37-year-old skater calls her 20something performers, “are thrilled. They get such a great reaction from the audience. . . . They’re very proud to be a part of it.”

Overall, said a company spokeswomen, viewers of all ages are entranced by Hamill’s show, which has drawn well on this tour. Older viewers, she added, appreciate the elegance of the visuals and the balletic movement. The antics of the stepsisters have been popular with children as young as 3, and even preschoolers seem able to follow the familiar story without narration.

Hamill says that after this season she plans to limit her performing to major cities to spend more time with her family: daughter Alexandra, 5, and husband Kenneth Forsythe, a sports medicine physician and her company’s chief executive officer.

She said she also hopes to develop what she thinks will be the first original story written for an ice show.

Hamill goes out of her way to commend her closest competitor, Walt Disney’s World on Ice (which comes to the Anaheim Arena in late December), but she says that ultimately she plays to a more sophisticated crowd.

“Primarily we’re a skating show; our guys are out there breaking their necks nightly,” Hamill explained. “Disney is really more of a movie on ice, with all the talking and the score from the movie. . . . It’s more of a spectacle on skates, not that they don’t have great skaters.

“I’m a Disney fan; I’ve seen every movie a million times. And maybe if I were Mom and Pop purchasing tickets for an ice show, I might go with Disney because I’m familiar with it.

“But over time, I think the word of mouth will get out, and people will see there is a big difference between us.”