Do you feel the need to travel to Broadway for gorgeous, expensive, eye-catching spectacle? Rest easy and stay local.
The Gateway Playhouse’s current, opulent production at the Patchogue Theatre of the Disney-fied “Beauty and the Beast” is simply breathtaking, in all departments: from the impressive whirling, moving sets and evocative projections of Kelly Tighe, to the colorful, Lewis Carroll-inspired costumes that come from Florida but are “supervised” by Marianne Dominy, to Christopher Landy’s mood enhancing lighting design, to a rich sounding orchestra conducted by Jeff Hoffman, who keeps the show constantly aloft and in motion, to a cast that is top-notch in every aspect—vocally, dramatically, and choreographically.
The choreography, by Michelle Weber, has just the right touch of humor to sometimes relieve the intensity of the rest of the story, particularly in the jolly “Be Our Guest” romp with clashing mugs.
And Dom Ruggiero has once again directed with a feather touch and creative mind that makes all of the extravagant onstage goings-on lighter than air and twice as interesting.
If the Alan Mencken/Howard Ashman/Tim Rice score tends, in the spirit of most Disney formulated scores, to wander a bit, it contains enough show biz knowhow to range from the rafters-rattling (“If I Can’t Love Her”) to the delightfully danceable (“Gaston” and “Be Our Guest”). In fact, “Beauty and the Beast” is one of the Disney factory’s most impressive and touching products, a show that, thank God, soars, and puts the current “The Little Mermaid” in its rightful place—in the deep.
It’s hard to imagine a better cast for this production. Comedy is guaranteed along with musical integrity in Allan Snyder as the combination of the Elvis-Presley and “Grease” reminder and insufferably self-loving Gaston, and his Sancho Panza like sidekick, Lefou, played with comic relish by Jonah Spear. Every time the book by Linda Wolverton threatens to become too involved in the romantic, these two levelers, helped immeasurably by their songs, arrive and relax the audience into guffaws.
Evan Maguire is an adorable pixy as the wackily in love (for the kids) and sexually ambitious (for the adults) Babette, a transformed by magic spell French maid. Ms. Maguire is constantly in motion in several directions as she pursues Davis Edwards, as Lumiere, another of the spell’s transformations. Mr. Edwards, in a role that comes straight from Jean Cocteau’s film of “Beauty and the Beast” illuminates the evening with two hands that are ornate, burning, expressive candles.
As Maurice, Belle’s eccentric and lovable father, Robert Lydiard is treasurable. Balancing his role as comic relief and enabler, and possessed of a fine voice, he is particularly touching in his duet, “No Matter What” with his daughter Belle.
Essentially, though, the focus of “Beauty and the Beast,” true to its title, centers on the characters of Belle and the Beast. As Belle, the beautiful village “strange one” who reads books, Ryan Kelly brings to the proceedings a fine voice and a mischievous personality that results in a mixture that makes her unrelievedly adorable—just the right approach to lift the character from caricature. Her final shared-with-the-audience realization that beauty, after all, comes from within, is done with grace and loveliness, and her scenes with the beast in Act Two are among the most moving in the production.
Josh Davis is, in a word, astounding as the Beast. His voice is thrilling and well deserving of the cheers it elicited from an opening night audience that stopped the show after each of his numbers. But more than this, his character, as is the phantom in “Phantom of the Opera” (which reveals itself as baldly stolen from the original “Beauty and the Beast” legend), is multifaceted.
Tortured and tormented by his own transformation from prince to beast, angry to the point of madness at his plight, yet possessed of a heart that can be touched by beauty and love and yearning, Mr. Davis transmits all of this with a fervor and a sensitivity that touches the heart. His is a masterful portrayal, alone worth the price of admission.
But then again, this production is seamless and first rate, with no weaknesses in any department. The cast is universally dazzling, the production itself as satisfyingly spectacular as a Ziegfeld Follies (which it sometimes, tongue in cheek, imitates) and ultimately worthy of its standing, shouted ovation. The Gateway has outdone itself with this one. It’s difficult to imagine a more successfully opulent and rewardingly tasteful treatment of a Disney property than this.
“Beauty and the Beast” continues at the Patchogue Theatre every night except Monday, and with some extra family-friendly matinees and early performances, through July 26. The box office number is 286-1133.
on Jul 14, 2008