The Vancouver Plank Panel encounter a beauty and a beast
Your Plank Panel rambling around a cramped castle:
*Andrew Templeton* who has never wrestled a pack of wolves but can be occasionally beastly, although generally he’s rather polite
*Cathy Sostad* who is a beautiful Nordic princess who from time to time leaves her castle disguised as a peasant in order to slay dragons, return library books and get a manicure.
The play: the Arts Club fourth go at *Beauty and the Beast* at the Stanley Theatre
*Andrew*: Before we start, I have a confession to make. I had a serious crush on "Belle":http://www.sandersartstudio.com/catalog/bellemk.jpg the star of the animated "Disney version of Beauty and the Beast":http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0101414/. Yes, I had a thing for a cartoon character. Now it’s out there, I feel better. The film came out in 1991 and I haven’t seen it since, so my memory of what it was about Belle that flamed my ardour is a little lost in the mists of time. I know it was more than just her good looks. It had something to do with her attitude, her ambitions and her love of books.
As we discussed after seeing the opening night of the Arts Club’s (fourth!) production of the stage adaptation, the original film was revolutionary (it was the first animated feature to be nominated for an Oscar for Best Picture). There is any number of reasons why: the songs are actually good, the story has enough emotional depth to engage adult audiences but probably most importantly is Belle. Ah, Belle. She wasn’t shoved to one side while some bland prince went on an adventure, nor did she behave like a boy so she could go on her own adventure. She was, well, a young woman, actually. And, if I remember correctly, an astonishingly well rendered woman (in both senses of the word for an animated character). There had never been a cartoon character like Belle, and Beauty and the Beast was really Belle’s story.
Now the stage adaptation – which appeared on Broadway only 3 years after the film was released – does something interesting. It has expanded the role of the Beast so that he has as much stage time, if not more, than Belle. Which is a shame because as a character he’s a bit of a bore, really.
*Cathy:* The Disney Beast is a bit of a bore, even though the original was voiced by Robby Benson, who may have graced my childhood bedroom wall in the form of a Tiger Beat pin up. The film of Disney’s Beauty and the Beast has a visual depth and character development which was uncommon in mainstream animation at the time. Plus it was fun, and the tunes were catchy. The first Beast in Western culture was Eros, the god of love, who was mysterious and feared. Disney’s Beast, on the other hand, is a regressive child, who slurps his soup and has tantrums at the drop of a hat. The traditional rendering of the Beast is that he looks like a beast but acts like a prince, and his outward appearance prevents people from seeing his own true Prince of a Guy self. Like Cinderella among her ashes, or Christ as a carpenter’s son, the Beast’s magic is that he’s not in his true form and those who can see his worth have that special something. Hence Andrew’s strong feelings for animated Belle since 1991. The staged Disney’s Beauty and the Beast seems to spend more time with the Beast than with Beauty, and in spite of fine performances at the Stanley, this is a mistake made by the Disney folks. Belle’s journey gets a bit lost in the woods, and that made me feel distant from her, well, that and the fact that in the Stanley the actors wore mic’s.
*Andrew:* Just to be clear, I’m not carrying a torch for Belle. It was a momentary infatuation…lasting no more than two or three years. I can’t stand mic’s. They make a production feel artificial and by taking away the warmth and humanity of their voices, make the performers seem distant from the audience. It’s like they’re behind an invisible wall. The refocusing of the story away from Belle and onto Beast was a huge miscalculation on the part of the adaptors. This is even reflected in the music that was added to the stage version which, I believe, is most of the Beast’s songs, which are also flat and uninteresting. I kept waiting to get to the “good parts”, that is the original songs from the movie and Belle’s story. As you say, that was Disney’s miscalculation. However, I think the Arts Club itself made one serious miscalculation: that set. There’s too much of it. The Beast’s castle is an interesting piece of architecture, I guess, but because of space limitations the playing areas are tiny. As you mentioned after the show, it was like Beauty and Beast for Vancouver condo-dwellers. Everything felt cramped. The Beast had to emerge from tiny doorways which seriously undermined his Beastliness. Gaston doesn’t plummet to his death but simply runs out of stage. The lack of space was most glaring in the dance sequence between Belle and the Beast. Instead of sweeping across a ballroom, they kept to a tiny a spot on the edge of the stage. I was expecting them to step off the revolve and for the stage to turn to allow them more open space but no, they stayed firmly rooted where they were. I longed for the set to disappear and for the actors to be able to move freely. For the Beast to emerge from the darkness. There were a lot of kids in the audience (which was wonderful to see). Kids are noted for their imaginations. I’m sure they would have got it.
*Cathy:* At its best there’s something of a panto feel about the Arts Club’s Beauty and the Beast, which is great and earthy. But there’s too much held back, and it was hard not to envision a fear of Disney Suits at the back of the theatre watching to make sure things are done the way Disney intended. The animated film didn’t feel constricted by branding, but the stage show does. Still, there are break through moments in this production, and they are delightful. Daniel Arnold as Cogsworth, the butler turned clock, and Matt Palmer as Lumiere, the manservant turned candlestick have real chemistry, along with Monique Lund’s Babette the sexy duster/maid. Susan Anderson as Mrs. Potts has a magical moment when she sings the title song while Beauty and the Beast dance in their constrained space, and it’s lovely, though it would be made lovelier with more room. The real stand out moments in this production are when Jonathan Winsby’s Gaston and Vincent Tong’s LeFou take to the stage. Tong in particular brings an honesty and fearless joy to the stage which is wonderful.
*Andrew:* Jonathon Winsby was a complete delight and dominated every time he was on stage. He was really into the Panto spirit – even his clothing was brighter than everyone else’s – and even now I can still see his gleaming gnashers. As you say, Palmer, Arnold and Anderson were great fun as the servants turned into household objects. And Lund can dust my furniture any day. That joke sounded far more unsavoury than intended. It took me sometime to warm up to Amy Wallis as Belle – she had big cartoon shoes to fill, after all –but I think she did some strong work, especially when the love story kicked in (just a shame it all felt so rushed). Steven Maddock did well enough as the Beast but I think it’s a thankless job. On the night we saw it, young Jared Khalifa played Chip the cup, the (must be) misbegotten child of the teapot. I found it amusing that when Belle’s father (a rather quiet Sandy Winsby) shows up at the castle, he’s completely unfazed by a tea cup the size of Mini-Cooper with the face of a boy sticking out of its side but then jumps out of his skin when he sees the Beast. I know which one I’d find more distressing to encounter in real life. The ensemble singing was fantastic and as far as I’m concerned, the opening song, where Belle sings of leaving her provincial town, could have gone on a lot longer. The audience on the night we saw it, loved the show. And it was the performances I believe they were responding to.
*Cathy:* You’re right, the show is an audience pleaser, but I can’t help thinking how much more pleasing it could be if it went for full blown magic. But then, I loves me fairy tales, and get a bit carried away about them. The best known western version of the Beauty and the Beast fairy tale is Madame Leprince de Beaumont’s telling, which is a “salon” tale, as she was an 18th century contemporary of Charles “Glass Slipper Cinderella” Perrault. The satirical tone and grandiose descriptions typical of salon tales make, in my opinion, a perfect transition into the Belle heroine of the 1991 animation. She treasures books over handsome empty-headed Gaston, and longs for a guy who gets what she’s about. When the animated Beast shows animated Belle a sweeping library of books, it is breathtaking, and demonstrates he not only gets her, but is totally into her. The staged Disney’s Beauty and the Beast misses that mark, by having a library that looks like a couple of shelves in Tanglewood Bookshop, not all the learnin’ a gal can find. Still, the show has charm which shines through the Disney branding.
*Andrew:* It would have been more pleasing with more magic and imagination. It was workman like in its vision when it should have been Merlin-like. There will always be (legitimate) grumblings about the Arts Club programming work like this, basically a Canadian franchise of a US chain. But there was a near full house and there were lots of children in the audience. There is one point, during a haphazard chase scene through the castle, where Khalifa – sans cup suit – gets involved in the action and takes on an adult. A child in our row gasped with delight and looked up at her mother. You can’t get too cynical about moments like that.
_Disney’s Beauty and the Beast; Music by Alan Menken Lyrics by Howard Ashman and Tim Rice Book by Linda Woolverton; Director Bill Millerd; Musical Director Bruce Kellett Choreographer Valerie Easton; for more information lumber over_ "here":http://www.artsclub.com/plays/20082009/onstage/beauty-and-the-beast.htm.