ACTOR MOVES FROM VILLAIN TO HERO
Arts Club’s take on Beauty and the Beast returns
After a nine-year absence, Disney’s Beauty and the Beast is back. The Arts Club mounted the musical four times between 2006-2009, bringing the adventures of Belle, Beast, Gaston and various singing and dancing castle appliances to Vancouver audiences. For the upcoming production, Arts Club artistic director Bill Millerd and many of the cast members from those earlier runs are returning. New elements include redesigned sets and costumes. There are also a couple of cast changes, including Shannon Chan-Kent in the role of Belle. (Amy Wallis, the young Vancouver-born actress who played Belle in the original Arts Club productions, lost a battle with cancer in 2015). And Jonathan Winsby, who previously played the villainous Gaston, is Beast. We talked to the actor about the show.
Q: What was it like going from playing Gaston to the Beast?
A: It’s a completely different role. Gaston is very near and dear to my heart. It’s the most recognizable role, at least here in town, that I’ve had. When you get a chance to play a villain, even one well-loved, you don’t want to pass it up. But it’s been years since I’ve played that. When Bill
Millerd got in touch with me earlier this year, I asked if he saw me playing Gaston or Beast. He’s been very enthusiastic about it. I was in Toronto at the time and sent him an audition on tape.
Q: What went into that audition?
A: More or less my own feeling on how the Beast is, and the story he has to tell. It’s pretty easy to tell his story without the Beast mask on, or the makeup and the hair. It’s a story of self-hatred and self-loathing, and of thinking he’s an outsider and then finally having someone help him recognize that.
Q: You were in a production of Jesus Christ Superstar that went to Broadway. What was that like?
A: It was a wild, brief hot second of a completely different world. I’d never been involved in a show that stopped halfway through after one musical number and had people cheering. But it wasn’t as much of a success there as it was in Canada. It’s funny the way the politics of New York work. If you can’t get called a Tony Award-winning show, it’s basically a death knell. We were one of 10 different productions to close in that three-month span of the summer of 2012.
Q: Well, you’re back home for a show that is relatively risk-free. Is that fair to say?
A: That’s the greatest thing about this show, other than that it’s a lovely story. I can’t imagine many people walking out of the theatre after seeing this and not being touched in some way. The other great thing is, it’s successful in all senses of the word. Financially, it’s selling so well that I can’t imagine other theatres not looking at that and saying, “OK, we need to keep Beauty and the Beast ready to go at the drop of a hat.” It’s permeated our culture so much, and Disney is such a part of our lives. It’s not a bad thing it does so well everywhere it goes.
Q: It’s a good time of year for the play. It’s not a Christmas story per se, but it leaves people with a warm glow.
A: Absolutely. There seems to be this holiday feel to it. And yet, the only holiday part of it is a sequence in the animated version that takes place over the course of a winter. Because of that, there’s a song with sleigh bells. Otherwise, it has nothing to do with the holidays. But it does have to a feel-good nature, and that take-care-of-your-fellowman type aspect of the season.