The costumes and the dancing are terrific. But then, so are the acting and the singing. It’s a tad long (2½ hours) but that’s certainly not the fault of director Fred Sternfeld, who keeps things moving briskly throughout. It’s a bit difficult for some young children to maintain their attention for such a long time, and especially during the fight scene between Gaston and Beast. (“Mama, I want to leave now.”)
The production overall is entirely believable, and everyone seems to sing and dance like old pros, the latter thanks to the wonderful choreography of Martin Cespedes. I’m sure he could make a person with two left feet cavort around the stage in the manner of Gene Kelly! Musical director Larry Goodpaster has an excellent pit orchestra, and leads them well. Even though all the singers are miked (as well as the orchestra) it is not a loud production
The music of Howard Menken with lyrics by Howard Ashman turns an ancient romantic tale into a spectacular love story with a nice mix of pleasant ballads and exuberant show-stoppers. This is most notable in ‘Be Our Guest’ in which all the kitchen utensils welcome Belle to dinner at the Beast’s Castle.
The unlikely young lovers are Natalie Green as Belle and Dan Folino as the Beast. They not only look as you want them to look, but they sing beautifully, while giving life to the parts. Josh Noble as the handsome, but empty-headed swash-buckler Gaston, is perfect—all teeth and shoulders! His confusion when Belle turns him down is wonderful. His foil, Zac Hudak as Lefou will surely be black-and-blue before the run is over, even if all his bones are still intact. The young man must be made of rubber to fall as he does and get up so cheerfully only to be knocked down again!
Larry Nehring as Lumiere and Kristin Netzband as Babette, the feather duster, were especially adept in their roles, which is not to slight the others: Bill Kelly as Maurice, Douglas Collier as Cogsworth, Amiee Collier as Mrs. Potts, and Tracee Patterson as the opera singer/Wardrobe. Maurice’s riding log-splitter invention is marvelously picturesque. Shades of Rube Goldberg!
Scenic designer Ben Needham created a handsome, multi-faceted set design with all sorts of moveable parts, that quickly morph from the village to the castle to the forest to Belle’s cottage and back again, in not much more time than it takes to blink. Lighting designer Steven Mack added many wonderful sparkly things to complement the versatile lighting effects. Costume designers Aimee Kluiber and Theatrix Costume House of Toronto deserve extra kudos for the marvelous depictions of the castle’s humans who are bewitched into becoming things: the clock, the teapot, the wardrobe, etc., not to mention the kitchen utensils! Not only are they wonderful to look at, but they didn’t seem to bother the very athletic dancers at all! Imagine trying to dance while garbed as a recognizable plate or corkscrew or measuring spoons!
Beauty and the Beast continues through December 31. For tickets or information, call (216) 521-2540 or log onto http://www.beckcenter.org.
From Cool Cleveland contributor Kelly Ferjutz artswriterATadelphia.net (:divend:)