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.
yet another review
Tue, 23 Sept 2008, 05:46 pmWalter Plinge
I attended the performance on Saturday the 13th, a while ago I know but it has taken me a while to get to the computer. Anyhow, I had very mixed views about the whole thing. There seemed to be such a huge difference in performance and experience level. I have had a lot of experience in acting and this is what I have to say about it:
The beast, played by Craig Menner was somewhat over-acted and could have been straight out of a high school play. Whenever he was angry, he just yelled and stomped with a raspy voice. I felt his performance was a series of different emotions that were being ‘acted’, though he did make up for this in his vocal ability as a singer which was outstanding and had all the audience that I could see in tears.
Also, I found it a little strange that the prince at the start was not the same prince at the end?? What is going on with that direction? If they thought this was something that would go unnoticed, I noticed and I’m sure a lot of other people did too.
As for belle, played by Cassandra Kotchie, what an absolutely amazing voice. She had beautiful tone with light and shade and carried the character off without any mistake in any song. In fact, whenever she walked on stage or opened her mouth to sing, there was silence and complete attention from the audience. She did an excellent job of creating Disney’s belle and I think we will see more of her in the future.
Lumiere, Cogsworth and Mrs. Potts, and in fact all the characters in the castle, were absolutely fantastic and played an integral part in holding the show together. They were clever, funny and held their characters very well, especially when they didn’t have lines which is the mark of good actors.
Although the femininity of gaston, played by Jason Arrow, does draw away from the character, he is a very good Gaston and does a very good job. This is meant as no form of slur against anyone, I just noticed that he should remove his own femininity from his performance in order to do an even better job. I was very impressed.
Now, with the next character I will mention, I want to be soft because I believe this person has taken a lot of time to do what they are doing but Lefou was far too over the top, and was extremely distracting from the action going on in the scene. It is great to make use of non-verbal communication when you aren’t speaking but he actually pulls focus at times.
I am really not trying to be mean but I feel very strongly about theatre and I would like to know if it were me. I don’t believe this is the fault of the actors as the show as a whole looks poorly directed with very few scenes that ‘lit up’ to me. The cast are obviously extremely talented and were cast because they are outstanding, I just feel that some scenes and actors needed more detail and polish.
I feel that the reason everybody walked out of that performance thinking it was excellent was because of how extraordinary the female lead was. Of course, not forgetting the very impressive sets and costumes which were, nevertheless made good use of and the characters in the castle. It was their professionalism in each of their roles that made this play not look amateur.
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