Reviews 2017
Reviews 2017
✭✭✭✭✩
music by Alan Menken, lyrics by Howard Ashman & Tim Rice, book by Linda Wolverton, directed by Allen MacInnis
Young People’s Theatre, Toronto
November 9, 2017-January 7, 2018
Mrs. Potts: “Bitter-sweet and strange
Finding you can change”
Young People’s Theatre has mounted a very handsome production of Beauty and the Beast, the 1993 stage musical based on the 1991 animated film from Disney. The last professional production Toronto saw of the musical was the 1997 stopover of the first Broadway tour. Then the design of the show was inhibited by its attempt to look as much like the animated film as possible. Now that restriction no longer exists and set designer Sue LePage and costume designer Joanna Yu have outdone themselves in creating a magical, imaginative world on stage. The singing is uniformly excellent and the message about seeing past outward appearances has only become more important over time.
The original story of “Beauty and the Beast” (“La Belle et la Bête”) was written in 1740 by Gabrielle-Suzanne Barbot de Villeneuve (1685-1755) and was thought to be intended to help young brides get used to the idea of arranged marriages. In a film like Jean Cocteau’s 1946 classic there is the notion that Belle is both attracted and repulsed by the Beast and that a woman’s love is what can help change a Beast into a man. No adaptation can quite get rid of the theme of the humanizing influence of women, but the notion of women’s subconscious attraction to beastly men has become much more problematic.
Linda Wolverton’s book usefully alters this question into one of not judging people by their appearance by recasting the character of Avenant in Cocteau’s film (Gaston in Disney), a would suitor of Belle’s, as handsome but annoyingly egomaniacal. Belle thus has to choose between Gaston, someone who outwardly is attractive but is inwardly harsh, and the Beast, who is outwardly unattractive but inwardly kind. Wolverton also creates a parallel between Belle and the Beast by emphasizing that they are both outcasts. Belle is viewed as odd in her small town because of her love of reading, which people of her time think has no useful purpose, especially for a lower-class girl. The Beast, of course, is made an outcast by his looks.
Director Allen MacInnis has assembled a strong cast of 14. Celine Tsai not only has a lovely voice but is a fine actor. Her Belle wins over our sympathy as she tries to brush off the villagers’ criticism of her and Gaston’s harassment. Yet, Tsai lets us know Belle would rather live somewhere else free of such irritations. It may be that Woolverton goes overboard in trying to make Belle a model of a brave and independent young woman, but Tsai shows, especially in the scenes with her father and with the Beast that Belle also has a caring and nurturing side as well.
Stewart Adam McKensy is a very sympathetic Beast. One might almost say he is so sympathetic that he is not quite as frightening as he should be. The music may lie a bit low for him, but he has the kind of voice that becomes more open and ringing the higher the notes. What McKensy does make clear is that the Beast’s gruffness derives mostly from regret at having brought a witch’s curse upon him and his whole household because of his unkindness.
Aaron Fergusson makes such an attractive Gaston, that children will have to listen closely to the lyrics and the dialogue to realize his flaws. Fergusson’s gestures are graceful rather than awkward and he has a warm, open voice that would make him ideal as a fairy tale hero. It is primarily through gestures and posture denoting pride and boastfulness that he conveys Gaston’s self-adulation.
Jacob MacInnis plays Gaston’s adoring sidekick LeFou, who unquestioningly follows whatever orders Gaston gives him. In Disney’s live-action remake of the animated movie of 2017, the director Bill Condon revealed that LeFou is supposed to me gay. Jacob MacInnis does make LeFou appear effeminate and empty-headed, but it would be unproductive to interpret his actions as “gay”. Rather MacInnis’s LeFou seems far more to represent the general opinion of the village as embodied in a single person who sees in Gaston the strength and good looks they would all like to have and mistakes these traits in Gaston for signs of good thinking.
Among the enchanted servants in the Beast’s castle, Damien Atkins is quite amusing as the Lumiere, the Beast’s butler-turned-candelabrum. Atkins’s French accent shift between Paris and Quebec, but his but his strong acting and rousing account of the show’s big dance number “Be Our Guest” make him the most memorable of the enchanted objects.
Andrew Prashad does not quite assume the authority he could do as Cogsworth, the Beast’s majordomo-turned-clock. But he has a hidden talent that choreographer Dayna Tekatch allows him to show off, namely fantastic tap-dancing that he accomplishes despite a confining costume.
Susan Henley is a delightful Mrs. Potts, the Beast’s head housekeeper-turned-teapot. Her character’s good sense helps balance the worry of the other objects. Henley sings the show’s title song beautifully emphasizing its comforting notion that everything will eventually work out well. Phoebe Hu is charming as Mrs. Potts’s son Chip.
While there are more named characters among the enchanted objects in the 2017 live-action Disney version of the film, there are only two more in the stage version. These are Emma Rudy, amusing as an dizzy Babette, a maid-turned-feather-duster, and Zorana Sadiq, very funny as a proud, vocally imposing Madame De La Grande Bouche, an opera singer-turned-wardrobe.
The combination of Sue Lepage’s sets and Joanna Yu’s costumes look like the illustrations of a children’s book come alive. LePage’s back wall has the outline of a turreted French-style castle with five entrances. In front she has created four triangular-footed towers. Two sides represent a blue night with painted trees and are used as the forest that surrounds the castle. The open third side can hold anything from a throne in the castle to a rank of bookshelves in the castle’s library.
Like LePage’s sets, Joanna Yu’s costumes re-imagine the Disney-based musical without reference to the designs from the animated film. Yu’s costumes are especially inventive. The Beast wears a torn medieval tunic and breeches but is otherwise covered in hair except for his face which is hidden by a mask. Lumiere is a rather modern-looking painted china candelabrum in a blue-striped pattern with candles on his shoulders and head that actually light up. Clever use of hoops and wires have made Mrs. Potts and Chip look like a live teapot and teacup. And Madame De La Grande Bouche does not look like a wardrobe herself, as in the film, but conceals it in her massive hooped gown.
Given the fine singing, the clever design and Allen MacInnis’s vibrant direction, the main let-down in the show is the musical accompaniment. There are two musicians, one who plays an electronic keyboard and one who alternates between a keyboard and percussion. The score is played on synthesizers and sounds so. For Menken’s soaring melodies the addition of at least one real stringed instrument would be helpful and two would be even better.
Nevertheless, this Beauty and the Beast is a treat and the storytelling is very clear. I was not certain that children as young as five would understand that the objects in the Beast’s castle also used to be human, but at the end when the audience cheered on seeing the objects back in human form, I saw I need not have worried. With its emphasis on humility, forgiveness and seeing past externals, the show is a fine way to accompany the holidays, finish the old year and prepare for the new.
For ages 5+.
©Christopher Hoile
Note: This review is a Stage Door exclusive.
Photos: (from top) Stewart Adam McKensy, Andrew Prashad, Emma Rudy and Celine Tsai; Joel Schaefer, Zorana Sadiq, Emma Rudy, Aaron Ferguson, Jacob MacInnis, Phoebe Hu, Susan Henley, Dale R. Miller and Andrew Prashad; Emma Rudy, Zorana Sadiq, Dale R. Miller, Damien Atkins, Aaron Ferguson, Claire Rouleau, Celine Tsai, Joel Schaefer and Jacob MacInnis. ©2017 Cylla von Tiedemann.
For tickets, visit www.youngpeoplestheatre.ca.
2017-11-15
Beauty and the Beast