That second shot is adorable. I tried a little PP on the first shot, hope you don't mind:
What I did:
- small curves adjustment to help bring out some middle tones
- desaturated the red
- both steps introduced even more noise
- I ran it through Topaz NR with moderate NR.
- tweaked the sharpness and reduced the blur to maintain some of the details
It is a little softer than the original pic. I guess you have to balance noise vs softness. Man I hate the high contrast and red cast in theatre shooting. Always a challenge.