‘Beauty and the Beast:’ Awkward effort at Artpark
Onstage cartoon is clumsy but still far from a total loss
With another two weeks of rehearsals, Artpark’s slipshod production of “Beauty and the Beast,” which opened Thursday night, might just struggle to its feet.
But by then, unfortunately, the show’s short summer run will be over. So thousands of Western New York theatergoers — many younger than 12, who will be happily enchanted no matter what — will need to deal with what they have.
And the spectacle that the director-choreographer team of Randall Kramer and Lynne Kurdziel-Formato have produced is by no means abysmal. It is, however, often clumsily danced, awkwardly acted and backed up by a stage and tech crew that seems to have short-circuited shortly before the show opened.
"Beauty and the Beast"
Two and a half stars (out of four)
Through Aug. 24; Artpark Mainstage; 450 S. Fourth St., Lewiston
Tickets, $12.50 to $45; www.artpark.net
The show tells Disney’s enchanting version of the age-old French fairy tale, in which a beautiful young girl, Belle, becomes the captive of the scruffy but lovable Beast in a castle replete with a collection of sassy, humanesque household objects. It teaches its target audience any number of invaluable lessons about respecting difference, the dangers of the mob mentality and the transformative power of true love. In short, it’s a lovely story.
And the good news is that the show’s musical elements are down pat, with a cadre of excellent voices and a generally on-target pit orchestra led by music director Eric Alsford.
Carol Ann Sanita is perfectly cast as Belle, with all the grace and innocence the role requires and a melodious, lilting voice to boot. The same goes for Glenn Lawrence as the arrogant Gaston, Vincent D’Elia as Lumiere (when we can hear him) and Susan Hoffman as the charming Mrs. Potts, among others.
Sanita’s counterpart, Michael Hunsaker, shines in the Beast’s singing parts but turns into a stilted mess whenever he’s required to act — or, for that matter, fight. The antagonistic relationship between Cogsworth (Keith Ersing) and Lumiere is mostly stilted, as are most of the unintentionally comic fight scenes, choreographed by ensemble member Paschal Frisina III. This is more of a distraction to those foolishly looking for acting in what is essentially an onstage cartoon.
Kurdziel-Formato’s talent as a choreographer is evident in numbers such as “Gaston,” that mug-clinking extravaganza set in a rustic tavern. But it breaks down into a complete jumble during the intended show-stopper “Be Our Guest,” during which several dancers in the ensemble fall obviously behind and almost all the lyrics sung by the show’s de facto star Lumiere are somehow lost in the theater’s new sound system.
Stage crews, those unsung heroes that normally keep shows moving at a fast clip, rarely get the credit they deserve. But in this “Beauty and the Beast,” they — along with a spotlight operator hilariously asleep at the switch — deserve special credit for manically lifting and dropping so many backdrops during the show’s title song that the audience could scarcely concentrate on the music.
This is all seemingly minor stuff that adds up to a lot, and it could all be fixed by better direction and a bit more time. It’s just too bad it didn’t happen before opening night.
