Beauty and the Beast Written by Alan Menken, Howard Ashman, Tim Rice and Linda Woolverton Directed by Robert Jess Roth Starring Danyelle Bossardet and Grant Norman At the Hummingbird Centre, Toronto Rating: **½
In the beginning, Disney said let there be theatre. And there was a Broadway show based on an animated film based on a fairy tale about a beautiful young woman who falls in love with a monstrous beast. And the people saw dancing silverware and talking clocks and they rejoiced and said this is good.
And Disney said let there be more theatre. And there was a Broadway show based on an animated film based on an African legend about a lion cub who grows up to be king. And the people saw puppets and stilt-walkers and masks and they rejoiced and said this is better.
In the world ALK (that's After Lion King), Disney's original foray into live theatre looks more like an overblown cartoon than ever. Beauty and the Beast,which returns to Toronto for a month-long run at the Hummingbird Centre where it opened Wednesday, is still a garish and busy show in which excess often substitutes for imagination.
But today, everyone knows that Disney can do better, so the Beast is really suffering by comparison. The chief attraction of its overwrought staging remains the delight of picking out the cheese grater and the hall rug from among the dancing housewares.
Yet what the Beast has that Lion King lacks is oodles of titillating story. The Lion King is a very simple coming-of-age tale in which Disney has attempted to tone down some unfortunate patriarchal assumptions by strengthening a few female characters. The Beast is also updated to suit contemporary mores: Belle is not just beautiful, she is also an intellectual, a bookworm who is misunderstood by a village full of louts; the Beast not only proves gentle in love, he is also carefully coached by his servants to control his temper and show respect; Belle's suitor Gaston is not merely a secondary character, he is now the very personification of thoughtless machismo and a crucial foil to the Beast.
But the appeal of this story remains its historical core, the chill and the thrill of Belle's capture and wooing by the frightening Beast. At least one Globe and Mail reader took deep offence several years ago when I suggested these archetypes prepare boys and girls for heterosexual life. But your options are limited: if not heterosexuality, then bestiality it is.
Certainly, this lively U.S. touring production is doing very nicely in the testosterone department with lots of sizzle provided by Edward Staudenmayer's resonantly braggart Gaston, Jay Russell's luxuriously charming rendition of the candlestick Lumière and, of course, Grant Norman as the guy with the fangs.
Danyelle Bossardet is a bit too middle-American homespun to successfully create the dreamy Belle, but she has a pretty voice that is nicely matched by Norman's deep instrument. When this show first played Toronto's Princess of Wales in 1995, I complained of its loudness; as this Beast flexed his muscles in that barn they call the Hummingbird, I only wished I could savour his solos more fully. Across the yawning orchestra pit, I could hear some tantalizing hints of a voice that would make any girl swoon. Beauty and the Beast runs until June 10 at the Hummingbird Centre in Toronto. Information: 416-872-2262.
Kate Taylor