‘Beauty and the Beast’ reviewed
Theatre Under the Stars’ production offers a magical journey into the past.
Last month at the Hobby Center, during intermission for the traveling Broadway production of “Phantom of the Opera,” two people were overheard debating whether Andrew Lloyd Webber’s blockbuster is, in fact, “the greatest love story ever told,” as the posters proclaimed. A consensus was quickly reached: it’s not. That a smart young woman would fall in love with a brooding captor is simply not believable — not the way this story unfolds. The man sitting behind me flipped through the pages of his playbill, remarking on how “Stockholm syndrome” love stories haven’t aged very well. Then he smirked.
“Look, ‘Beauty and the Beast,’ ” he said, pointing at an ad in his program. “That’s the same story!”
Theatre Under The Stars did not plan for its remount of the Disney musical — which the company helped debut in 1993 — to follow another story about a misunderstood monster who cap-
tures a girl and convinces her to fall in love with him while in captivity. But here this musical is, arriving right after “Phantom,” challenging us to believe that our Beast is, after all these years — and unlike the masked Phantom — still worthy of love.
For much of the 20th century, Disney’s films were famous for turning the most gruesome stories in the canon, like “Cinderella,” into magic for children. “Beauty and the Beast” was the first to lay claim to cinematic greatness, featuring the romantic sweep of a live-action drama. It was the first full-length animated feature nominated for a best picture Oscar.
“Beauty and the Beast” was also Disney’s first dive into Broadway. The 1993 musical ran for 13 years. Unlike the film, however, the stage adaptation couldn’t feature tiny talking teapots, nor grand libraries, nor glowing rose petals, nor a beast whose wet hair puffed out like a dog after a pre-dinner bath. An animated beast can look cute, therefore lovable, while a man in a suit looks silly and emotionally inaccessible. Not all the magic translated to the stage.
Some of the extra musical numbers in the stage version feel like fluff. “Human Again,” which didn’t make the film, is wellcomposed but doesn’t tell us anything about the story or its characters we don’t already know. The cringe-inducing “Me” features a physically aggressive Gaston pushing and pulling at an unwilling Belle.
As such, the current production at TUTS — at the Hobby Center through Sunday — is a reflection of the past. Magic mirror, show me what theater was like two decades ago! And yet, look at all those children. And marvel at how showstopping “Be Our Guest” remains.
The production, in other words, can’t live up to your nostalgia for the film, yet it’s filled to the brim with human beings whose presence feel very much alive. Michael Burrell, as Beast, manages to sing beautifully through his furry mane and mask. “If I Can’t Love Her?” ends the first act, giving the Beast a gloomily relatable inferiority the film didn’t have. His performance is the most important, as that discerning audience member from “Phantom” would likely point out, because the musical doesn’t work if you don’t fall in love with the Beast.
But Burrell pulls it off. It takes broad physical comedy — swinging arms and big gestures of cutesy frustration — to convince us the Beast is a good guy despite jailing Belle’s father, then Belle. In the film, the “ticking bomb” was the image of the rose withering over time. On the stage, we see Lumiere (an effervescent James Patterson), Cogsworth (Price Waldman) and the rest of the servants slowly turn into inanimate objects — giving the urgency of Belle and Beast’s romance a more communal sense of stake. And don’t forget the Beast’s best trait — unlike the Phantom, he’s funny.
The enchanting Delphi Borich is Belle. She never seems afraid of the Beast, which comes across as naïve in the beginning but then translates into a role of authority and mentorship — in this version, Belle teaches the Beast to read “King Arthur.” We slowly interpret her to be motivated by curiosity, by kindness and by her boredom with her small French village.
There are moments you can’t re-create on the silver screen, like seeing the delightful Brennan Quarles Emeka, as Chip, pop his head out from a table. Director Chris Bailey keeps the bodies onstage moving in deliberate, dramatic patterns that circumvent the large gaps carved out for the pit orchestra. As Belle and Beast fall in love, your eye wanders from dancer to dancer.
The expectation that comes with something named “Beauty and the Beast” will always be astronomical. That doesn’t mean it still can’t surprise, please and delight. Then, when you finally hear the lyrics “tale as old as time,” your mind is no longer in the past. Instead, you are focused entirely on the present moment — a luxurious, candlelit few seconds that feel close to magic.