Shows for kids draw on old favourites
Youngsters can enjoy season that includes Beauty and the Beast, Elf and pantomime
Having barely left our movie screens, the story of Beauty and the Beast is returning to Toronto stages this November with the Young People’s Theatre’s production of the Broadway musical.
The show’s first Canadian production opened in Toronto in 1995 and played for three years at the Princess of Wales theatre, but director Allen MacInnis has described the upcoming YPT production as a much more intimate “chamber musical.”
First written as a French fairy tale in the 18th century, the story of an enchanted prince-turned-monster and the peasant girl who saves him has been retold in books, plays, movies, TV shows and graphic novels. Yet it was the 1991 Disney animated film that inspired the Broadway musical and, even more recently, a live-action feature starring Emma Watson.
It’s a story about magic that requires quite a bit of theatre magic to tell on the stage, and MacInnis says his version, with a cast of just 14 actors, will be much more impressionistic.
“The focus is very much on the story,” MacInnis says. “We’re also using a kind of environment than can transform from one setting to another. Things like Belle’s cottage are represented, but it doesn’t have to be a real house.
“It’s just trying to be mindful of the elements of the story and keep the balls in the air that need to be in the air, and not worry about other details that the kids can fill in for themselves.”
MacInnis says he’s trying not to worry about some of the iconic images from earlier productions, and wants to rediscover what was so evocative about the tale of the enchanted prince and his household.
“There is something about that castle in the forest that has somehow been forgotten about that in time has become obscured,” he reflects.
“I also think there’s something important about the depiction of the objects as being really the collateral damage of his curse, that all of the people that worked for him in his castle have been brought into the terms of the curse, and that it’s very real again that they may never get back to being human beings and may be forever frozen as objects.”
What he’s not worrying about is how his audiences might compare his chamber musical to the more epic versions they might have seen on screen, since his nearly four decades of ex
perience onstage has shown how vivid live theatre can be for young theatregoers.
“There’s also something about being in the same room as the performers that makes theatre particularly powerful. Every now and then a kid who’s particularly sensitive can’t be in the same room, but they can step out of the theatre and watch it on the screen in the lobby.”
“Whatever was too scary in the story is not too scary any more. There’s something about breathing the same air that the actors are breathing that makes it quite powerful, and I suppose that’s because they’re all using their imaginations together in the same direction and so it has this intensity.”
This fall is rich with potential firsttime theatre experiences. Another hit film turned into a Broadway musical visits Toronto is the touring production of Elf the Musical, based on the 2003 Will Ferrell movie and playing at the Princess of Wales Theatre from Nov. 21-26.
Ross Petty brings his pantomime version of Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol to the Elgin Theatre for the Christmas season (Nov. 24Dec.31).
Marquee stars of the annual tradition include Dan Chameroy, last seen in Matilda: The Musical, and A.J. Bridel, who made her name with the Mirvish production of Kinky Boots.
Soulpepper is also opening a version of A Christmas Carol, though without the pantomime dame, in a production that opens at the Young Centre for the Performing Arts on Dec. 7 and runs until Dec. 24.
The Lorax, based on the Dr. Seuss story, is on at the Royal Alexandra Theatre from Dec. 9-Jan. 21, and a production of Annie, the comic strip turned hit musical and movie (twice!), opens at the Randolph Theatre on Dec. 8 and runs until Jan. 7.
MacInnis thinks anything that lets young people see actors at work live on a stage is invaluable in creating future audiences for everything from Broadway shows to local independent productions.
“To quote a Quebec playwright, ‘the only difference between theatre for young audiences and for adults is the obligation to have some element of hope in stories that we give to young people.’
“Otherwise it’s exactly the same — the same serious intentions, the same obligation to entertain, the same quality of writing and directing and acting. The only difference is that for kids you don’t walk them down the dark alley and then leave them there.”