Beauty and the Beast - The Muny

The hardest part of evaluating a show, I think, is being able to evaluate it on its own merits, without holding it up against other productions in memory; the memory inevitably idolizes the good performances and demonizes the bad ones, beyond their actual goodness or badness, so those measures are inherently flawed. It gets even worse when one judges a stage production against a movie. Cameras can trick the eye into seeing things; music can be reworked into perfection for the soundtrack; Hollywood budgets can glitz the audience into submission. Live theatre cannot beat these, and it’s especially hard when the show’s source material is from a movie – a cartoon, no less.

And as hard as the professional review can try to eliminate these biases, the common theatergoer usually does not. Such is Disney’s Beauty and the Beast at the Muny in Forest Park. The Muny has a tendency to add its own special pizzazz to everything it does (consider The Fantasticks), but here it adds things in the wrong places.

First, consider the scary forest, where Maurice the father, played by St. Louis’ own Ken Page, encounters wolves. Well, not just wolves; he also encounters these strange hairless black creatures that hang out with the wolves. What are they? Muny Kids that the wardrobe department didn’t want to fully costume, I suppose. I figure that if you aren’t going to appropriately costume any actor, no matter how small, you shouldn’t send them out on stage. These black beasts, however, found a way to get out there.

The big show-stopping number is, of course, “Be Our Guest,” complete with dancing flatware and kitchen accessories and follies girls with plates that spin attached to their backs; both tasteful and well-executed. A series of individual vignettes follows à la The Nutcracker when the different candies dance for Claire. These are cute for a while but eventually one becomes anxious waiting for the big chorus part – you know, good old fashioned Muny-styled get-a-hundred-people-on-stage-and-make-them-dance-together-like-we-did-in-Forty-Second-Street chorus numbers – to come out, and when it does, at the tale end of the number, it’s over almost before they’re all out there.

The orchestrations also leave the audience hanging sometimes, although this is not the Muny’s fault. The orchestrations may have worked in some Broadway theatre where people are stacked on top of each other, but when you have a full house of eleven-thousand patrons, plus about a hundred staff watching in the wings, you need something fuller coming out of the orchestra.

Also, the book was, in my opinion, needlessly lengthened with songs we’d all rather forget, such as “No Matter What” or “Maison des Lunes.” The show – included in the season to attract children – is already two and a half hours long. These songs, which aren’t really necessary, could just as easily be taken out and replaced with regular dialogue.

The actors themselves do remarkably well with a script that left plenty of room for improvement. Lee Roy Reams, playing Lumiere, works well with lines that really ought not be there – mostly dialogue with Sharon Ann Farrell, playing Babette the maid. They are cute together but they digress too much too often for my tastes. Again, not the Muny’s fault. Blame Disney.

Bruce Adler handles himself well as Cogsworth, preferring to take the tone of the character in his own direction, rather than rely on the movie like one would be inclined. Karen Morrow is surprisingly decent as Mrs. Potts. Her vocal tambre leaves room for improvement still but at least she hits all her notes. Nat Chandler (Gaston) is disgustingly self-interested, as he ought to be, and the beast’s costume must weigh down on James Clow because sometimes hits a flat note when singing. Also, snaps for Katie Pees (Madame de la Grand Bouche) who actually wears a wardrobe for a costume. That can’t make movement or singing easy, but she still finds the energy – or adrenaline – keep going out there with planks of wood strapped around her neck.

Many of these same actors, also, have chosen to speak with a French accent. I can understand the temptation – it is set in Provençal France, after all – but generally I think it is better to used a heightened, trans-Atlantic English instead of a foreign accent whenever the action is in a foreign country. We won’t forget where they are, and as a cast they should have decided how they were going to talk. It doesn’t help when two people talking to each other on stage are talking with completely different accents. Also, some members found my pet peeve by mispronouncing what little French there actually is in the show. I never thought “rendezvous” or “bonjour” were so difficult to pronounce properly. Thankfully the random theatergoer won’t know the difference; at least Chandler’s pronunciation of “rendezvous” is mildly funny.

There are many other bright spots in this show. The kids during some of the dances (wolves scenes aside) help fill the stage and at least blend in when they're given appropriate costuming. The dancing chorus is simply amazing. Their precision and execution (not to mention form and simple beauty) of the ballet segments are incredible and worthy of extended praise (which I cannot give here). Even the bar scene, the dance with the beer steins is cute, clever, and well-done. In an era when ballet falls farther and farther away from its traditional roots and form and substance are lost, Beauty and the Beast returns many times to the foundations of all dances with artful and creative movements. Indeed, the dance is the best part of the show, and is a worthy reason of going to see this show.