A familiar fairy tale on a Broadway scale
No man is so ugly or violent or ignorant that he cannot be redeemed by a beautiful (and necessarily gullible) young girl willing to take him seriously as a mate, if only he can be taught to say “please.”
That’s more or less the message behind the time-honoured fable of Beauty and the Beast, now playing in its Disney musical form at Place des Arts.
But most parents have no qualms about taking their daughters to see the cartoon film or the musical on which it is based. A fairy tale is, after all, just that. And this one has a literary history that reaches back to a story by Gabrielle-suzanne Barbot de Villeneuve, published in 1740. Since then, it has resurfaced in various forms, ranging from a 1771 opera, with music composed by André Grétry, to numerous video games and a spectacular La Belle et la bête, staged by Michel Lemieux and Victor Pilon at Théâtre du Nouveau Monde last year. (This high-tech wonder is now being prepared for its Toronto debut at the Luminato Festival, June 8-12.)
Gaston Leroux clearly drank from the Beauty and the Beast well when he wrote the 1910 novel The Phantom of the Opera, which formed the basis of the juggernaut Andrew Lloyd Webber musical. After Disney launched Beauty and the Beast on Broadway in 1994, it happily rode the coattails of The Phantom for 13 years. Now, the current American road tour version is visiting Montreal.
For this reviewer, who saw the lavish $17 million Toronto production in 1995, this Beauty and the Beast is a bit of a letdown. For one thing, the lead actor, Dane Agostini, who did an advance interview with The Gazette, subsequently proved unavailable (no reason given) for the weekday shows (he’ll be back today). This suggests a certain lack of respect for Montreal. As does the fact that one of the chorus girls had a palm-sized rip in her tights on Thursday night. We’re just another pit stop.
On the positive side, understudy Jeff Brooks did a solid job. Since there was no printed notice of the substitution in the program, few members of the sparse audience (Salle Wilfrid Pelletier was about two-thirds empty) noticed.
The female lead, Emily Behny, is perfectly cast to type and is up to par with her solo A Change in Me. The standout voice, however, is that of Logan Denninghoff, as bad boy Gaston, who pushes his hammy role to the hilt. Julia Louise Hosack, as Mrs. Potts (the teapot), ably delivers the title song, which Céline Dion and Peabo Bryson rendered immortal at the Oscars in 1992. And there is a worthy 11-piece orchestra in the pit.
The archaic fairy tale sets that contrast the folkloric town scene with the Gothic castle ones are impressive, as are some of the special effects. Group numbers like the beermug-clicking tavern song, Gaston, and the splashy Be Our Guest, featuring dancing cutlery, serve as a spring tonic.
But at more than 2½ hours duration (including intermission), Beauty and the Beast adds up to a late night for kids. Also, this isn’t a sung-through pop opera, it’s a talky book musical with entire song-free scenes. This makes language comprehension more important, and no French-language surtitles are provided. Too costly, I’m guessing.