SIMONE Bartram has to be the friendliest-looking Big Bad Wolf in theatrical memory.

She’s playing the part in Rebus Theatre’s coming production of “The Beauty Thief”, and as she sees it, her wolf is not really all that bad.

The story, devised by the mixed ability cast, with co-directors Robin Davidson and Sammy Moynihan, has a familiar tinge to it, a mix of “The Lion The Witch And The Wardrobe”, and “The Snow Queen”.

It’s about a rather wicked witch, played by Louise Ellery, who arrives in a magical kingdom and proceeds to take all the beauty out of it, so that “the most beautiful princess in the land” (Kimberly Adams) is stripped of all her beauty.

“The story of the wolf is an interesting one in the fact that she’s searching for someone to break a spell put on her by the witch, played by my friend Louise,” Bartram says.

“She’s not just evil — there’s more to this wolf, she’s trapped in a wolf’s skin… I won’t tell you all the details.”

Normally Bartram is confined to a wheelchair, but she hopes to fulfil a long-held dream in the coming show.

“I stand in the play, which is a big moment for me,” she says, “I don’t often get a chance to stand because cerebral palsy means my muscles tell my brain what to do, so I can’t stand up and explore who I am, at a different level.”

Like most actors, she’s prepared to work hard, as she has been doing with her physiotherapist for six months in preparation for the big moment.

“Acting is like a job to me… even when I don’t get paid,” she explains, “the reason for this is that it gives me a sense of freedom, I’m bound to chair for my whole life but once I get on stage it’s like I’m a completely different person.”

When she thinks about it, being bound in a wheelchair is like being trapped in a wolf’s clothing.

“My chair sometimes feels like a cage. Like the other characters in the tale, I’m trapped in this chair and sometimes I need to escape into my acting,” she says.

At nearly 23 years of age, she’s been acting for 11 years now and started in grade 6, first playing a comic part that saw the audience burst into applause.

In her secondary studies at Namadgi, Stromlo and Tuggeranong, she continued in drama lessons.

It was at Tuggeranong College that she met Cara Matthews, one of the founders of Rebus Theatre.

“Rebus gave me my start as a serious actor,” she says.

“Socially, acting, is a good thing to do and I’ve made some of my lifelong friends there, like Louise who plays the witch and Joel Swadling, who once played Romeo with me.”

Co-director Moynihan, better known as live programs officer for Belco Arts has been with Rebus for a couple of years as a performer, teacher and now director.

There is minimal dialogue, but it’s projected on a screen, he says, as it’s a physical theatre piece created around a fairytale plot. But there is a scenario and it will be the same show every night.

“It’s provided a lot of opportunities for the cast, who have used all the possibilities of the fairy tales to create a ‘really cool’ play that deals with some of the deep moral issues of our society, so there’s the Wicked Witch and also a tyrant who tries to control all of the action… the play deals with transformation and somethings aren’t as they appear,” Moynihan says.

“Most of the characters are limited in how much freedom and autonomy they have, similar to people with disabilities” and Rebus Theatre, after all, is a mixed ability theatre for social change created by serious actors with differing abilities.

While not specifically for children, he believes people of all ages will enjoy it, although younger children may need some hand-holding.

He praises the creative team they have assembled, composer/sound artist Marlene Radice, costume designer Fiona Victoria Hopkins, lighting designer Ali Clinch and stage manager Anni Doyle Wawrzy?czak, and says: “We’ve tried to surround the cast with high-level professionals because we really want them to have an experience of putting on a professional show, to open the doors for them.”

Dance sequences by CDTeens from Canberra Dance Theatre, a first for Rebus, have turned into something more pivotal as they become a kind of Greek chorus, he says.

Like Bartram, Moynihan won’t give the ending away, but says, enigmatically “life doesn’t have a happy ending – well, not necessarily”.

REBUS Theatre presents “The Beauty Thief”, Belconnen Community Theatre, March 26-28 at various times. Bookings here.