Beauty and The Beast at Playlovers (Regal Theatre)
Fri, 12 Sept 2008, 12:01 pmAsta93 posts in thread
Beauty and The Beast at Playlovers (Regal Theatre)
Fri, 12 Sept 2008, 12:01 pmWednesday afternoon...I'm just about to leave work boasting to everyone that tonight I'm off to go watch the opening night of Beauty and the Beast. "Ha ha ha!" I say to everyone as I smugly leave my office boasting that my night is going to be markably more entertaining than anything they are likely to do...then my phone rings.
ABSOLUTELY SHATTERED!!! I'm sure my situation was not the only one on that Wednesday afternoon. I heard of some people who didn't even get a phone call from Ticketek to tell them the shows opening night had been cancelled. Opening night cancelled??? How could that possibly happen? But thankfully I was able to switch my tickets for Thursday night and can I say first of all WOW!!! So let's not dwell on why the show had to wait a day to open and rather focus on the show.
First of all the highly debated sets and costumes. These were wonderful and in a show like Beauty and the Beast it is really essential for these to be of the standard they were. When the castle was first revealed on stage there was a roar of applause from the audience as they felt truely overwhelmed by the sheer size and effectiveness of the set. The costumes as well were an absolute delight. I was reading in the West Australian that they had a former professional costumer working with the Playlovers production (please correct me if I'm wrong) and can I say it truely paid off. I was concerned about being able to see the emotion of the Beast (after all he is in a very heavy mask) but the actors commitment to the character and the freedom of the costume allowed for all this to still come through.
The music was amazingly overwhelming. Very powerful and of an incredibly high standard. Craig Dalton (surprisingly young looking in such a huge role as musical director) is to be commended on his ability to direct such a fantastically beautiful piece of music for Perth audience.
Without a doubt my favourite part of this show was "Be Our Guest" and really was a chance for the cast to show off their skills and the beautiful costumes. A good strong dancing chorus of both males and females. The plates were girlishly cutesy, with a real playful charm. I can't even imagine trying to dance with something that big attatched to my back (wonderful job girls). The other dancing girls - not sure what they were meant to be - were a little bit more 'grown-up' compared to the plate girls. Beautiful high kicks and well executed partnership dancing. It was a nice difference between the two 'characters' of the female ensemble and gave them something to set them apart and gave them more of a personal character.
The male ensemble was amazing. How Playlovers got so many boys to not only appear on stage but also dance is beyond me. They were wonderfully energetic and performed as individual characters not as one solid group which was particularly effective in their performance of "Gaston" (another of my favourites). I must say I haven't enjoyed drunken men dancing ever before in my life but then these men could actually dance whereas those I meet on a Saturday night more wiggle...anyway I loved it!
Now onto the leads. A wonderful leading cast with some truely standout performance. The BIG standouts were:
Jen Godleman as Belle
Beautiful voice and very convincing character. She seemed a little nervous to begin with and some lines were dropped but not so much that it was distracting. Nerves are a part of opening night and she did a wodnerful job.
Craig Menner as the Beast
What a voice!!! "If I can't love her" was truely amazing. He had an amazing acting range, from being frighteningly scary to being kindhearted and gentle. Amazing actor. I especially liked his excitement as Belle read him the story of King Arthur. Very cute.
Kim Godleman as Lumiere
An absolute delight to watch. The physicality he portrayed was wonderful and the chemistry between him and Babette was very cute and believable to watch. Wonderfull performance.
Hayley Mayne, Genevieve Newman and Kylie Baker as the silly girls
These three girls stole the show everytime they were on stage. Absolutely adorable to watch and very very funny.
The entire cast and crew should be commeneded on this production. After months of bitching, whinging, complaining, disasters, triumphs and enjoyment the show finally went on and it was FANTASTIC!!! Good luck for the rest of the production and I will definetly be spending $60 to go see it again.
Great Night
Sun, 14 Sept 2008, 02:10 pmWalter Plinge
I went and saw the performance of B&B Friday night and once again was blown away, just as I was 19 months ago when it was first performed in Mandurah.
Kim Godleman, rocked, you son are a star and even stepped it up from your last performance. I think in what ever show I have seen you in, you steal my attention in one way or another. It was great to see you up there with some new faces and a fantastically talented cast as you fit in so well and really captured the audiences heart.
The lovely Jenn, It was great to see you in this role, your lines and movement were delivered with such conviction that I forgot it was you. You had a warmth around you the entire performance and you had drawn everyone in from the time the curtain rose to the time it fell. It doesn't surprise me though how well you have done, as not matter what character I have seen you play, you put your all in and it really pays off.
The gentleman who played cogsworth! Also excellent, it is good to see remarkable comic timing and someone feel so comfortable on stage, Yourself and Lumier bounced so naturally together it was a great team.
There has been a lot said about certain characters in this being out of their depth. I believe that Jason Arrow playing Gaston was not entirely out of their depth. I must admit when seeing he was playing the role I was curious to see how he would go, but I was really pleased with his performance. He took a character that is meant to be big and burley and almost made it his own. I know how he would have felt playing a character like this as I too have been cast in a role before that needs to be tweaked to fit the performer. His voice was great and his acting was terrific, however it will be extremley hard to break the audiences conception of what Gaston should really be like. I think the Disney picture is still too fresh in anyones minds to break that stereotype. But Jason to me you were great and a pleasure to watch, and if anything your getting toungues wagging which is what you want to create for an audience.
The Beast himself, I was a little taken back, I didn't see the first Beast which seems to have got some great and stunning reviews on opening night and bravo to him, On the second night I got to see Gareth as the beast. Knowing Gareth for many years I knew he would be quite competent in this role and I feel he was. After watching the original beast however in the MPAC version I feel the stature of this beast was a little underdone and didn't quite suit (once again) what people stereotype the character to be, which is not Gareths falt being as thin as he is but would have been good to have built that suit up a little more. The acting was good aswell as the singing, but knowing Gareth was also recovering from illness I know his voice could not stand up 100% to capture the Beast properly that night. But great job non the less I enjoyed it.
The sets were great, the costumes remarkable. There needed to be some work on the microphones as the popping did get a little too much, and sometimes in the chorus numbers you could not tell who was actually singing the solo lines. Chorus were outstanding and were all very focused, however I do feel that there may have been too many chorus people on stage at times as they blocked a lot of the action of the leads from where I was seated.
Overall I had a great night, and thank everyone in the bast and crew for putting in a great effort, I would love to come and see it again with the other Beast and Belle. Good luck for the rest of the season!
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