Review for the musical: Beauty and the Beast
It’s all about entertaining!
Sometimes, words cannot describe everything. You just have to see it, to be part of the creativity. Especially when such good shows exist, as beauty and the beast. The show came from overseas to dazzle the Europeans and the Asians. I think its purpose has been accomplished. It starts as a lovely story (suited for a fairytale) and as it goes on it reveals the exquisite talent of 32 actors who dance and sing wonderfully. Of course there is always a way of doing things and Disney productions tend to keep this way to every show they produce. But beneath this manure, one can distinguish the great talent of each of the actors.
Hilary Maiberger is playing Beauty effectively. She gives her 100% in everything, meaning singing and playing in a very ladylike way that leads you to understand the character, and not just hear her sing. I am sure that she will have a brilliant future in musical theatre and in other kinds of acting. As for the Beast, Darick Pead made all crowd love him, in order to save him from the evil spell! He is an incredible lyric singer with lots of virtues. But, nothing would be so well played if it wasn’t for Gaston! (Adam Dietlein). He gave the beat to the whole thing, he was the ultimate comedian with bad intentions(!). Especially the scene with the cups was very impressing, difficult to perform and needed an enormous amount of work and focus in order to do it well. In this part, I have to say that the dancers were creating the beat.
I could write many things about Hassan Nazari-Robati as Lumiere, who gave to the role a unique character, James May as Cogsworth, who gave to his nervous character a very loving face, Emily Mattheson as Mrs. Potts, who sang like a true mother to her son’s first ball. Paul Crane as Maurice (Belle’s father), was a very loving and crazy like figure and Jordan Aragon as Lefou (Gaston’s sidekick) gave his best as a clown who makes anyone laugh on his very one expense! Last, but not least, mrs Potts’s little boy was a very cute cup who “grabbed” most of the applause.
The dancers-actors were performing in a very professional broadway like way, in which anyone could see the work behind the choreographies.
Rob Roth directed the fairytale with much imagination. Stanley A. Meyer designed a magic set. The costumes were designed by Ann Hould-Ward and made the experience perfect! Of course I must applaud the wonderful musicians because, although a fairytale, this could never be so real-without their help!
E.B.
21/11/14