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.
Thanks for a wonderful show
Sun, 28 Sept 2008, 01:44 pmWalter Plinge
Saw the show last night and was thoroughly impressed.
The orchestra were incredibly professional, I thought there was a mini WASO in the pit! Well done to Craig for holding the music together so well as always.
As mentioned, the sets were truly magnificent. Congratulations to the production crew for putting them together (and coping with all those set changes!)
I must commend the strong ensemble for their energy and focus. They sounded wonderful and looked fantastic up on stage (those costumes were brilliant.)
Jennifer Godleman was a marvelous Belle...there is a lovely purity to her voice and she really embodied the sweetness of character. I particularly loved the song "Change in Me."
Gareth Jay was also wonderful as the beast. I'm sure it couldn't have been easy working with that mask for majority of the show but he seemed to manage very well, he captured the character of the beast in his movement and his voice, and sang beautifully too I might add. "If I loved her" was a wonderful showstopper.
Also must congratulate Sue Vincent as Mrs Potts, I loved her rendition of the title song.
Chip was also adorable (you'll have to forgive me, I can't remember the young actress's name as I gave the programme to my friend!) It was also a pleasure to see Natalie Jackson as the wardrobe, she was highly entertaining during her moments on the stage and her voice sounded lovely... even when she was putting on that funny opera voice!
Jason Arrow was great as Gaston. Having read the previous comments about him being too "feminine" I wasn't sure what to expect. But I really don't know what they were talking about. He seemed "manly" enough in his portrayal. I noticed both reviewers who posted these remarks happen to be male and therefore might have a different perspective on masculine ideals, but it seems a bit nit picky to me. He has a strong voice and presence and channelled the arrogance of Gaston's character very well. Which is a good thing, by the way.
Well done also to Tim How as Lefou, I didn't think he was over the top tonight, he had pretty much the right level of animation and energy for the role and was a comical presence on the stage.
My main criticism/suggestion would be that perhaps the show could have started at least an hour earlier, as it didn't finish till some time around 10:30. I was surprised at how many parents had brought young children, even when they must have known that it wouldn't finish till after 10. I have nothing against bringing children to a show, particularly this one, but at that hour it was clear that some of them were growing very restless, even after the first 15 minutes or so.
I'll admit this one of the few shows I've seen that brought a few tears to my eye at certain moments, which doesn't happen too often for me!
Well done again to all, including those who I haven't mentioned, because I don't think there was really any weak performances in this show. This is actually the first show I've seen by Playlovers, and I look forward to seeing more great things from them in the future as I think this is certainly a show to live up to. Thank you for bringing this to Perth audiences and please keep up the awesome work.
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