THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, July 21, 1996 TAG: 9607190067
SECTION: DAILY BREAK PAGE: E1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY MAL VINCENT, THEATER CRITIC
LENGTH: 70 lines
DISNEY'S ``Beauty and the Beast,'' now on stage at the Kennedy Center, is a real beaut - a theatrical spectacle that puts adults in their place at the same time it encourages children to be children. Big folks will be awestruck. Little ones will be enchanted.
The first venture of the new theatrical wing of the Disney empire is based on the only animated movie to receive an Oscar nomination in the ``best picture'' category. The movie, which won Oscars both for its overall musical score and for its title song was, after all, more like a new Broadway musical than anything Broadway itself has been serving up lately.
But rather than just re-create the film, the stage version expands the action to three-dimensional terms. You now see the teapot (Mrs. Potts), the candelabrum (Lumiere) and the clock (Cogsworth) sing and dance while fully realizing that they, quite beside the point, are also humans.
Washington is the eighth city in the world to have a current stage version. The move has prompted a rush from Hampton Roads both by auto and via bus tours (a comfortable one-day trip for a matinee performance).
Bigness is both the attraction and curse of this show. Disney, of course, was not going to stand by any longer and watch the Cameron MacIntosh theatrical group take in all the millions for gold mines like ``Cats,'' ``Les Miserables'' and ``Phantom of the Opera.'' Going to the theater now had to be a major ``event'' with a spectacle, such as a falling chandelier, a helicopter on stage (as in ``Miss Saigon'') or a French revolution.
Theatrical purists blanched, claiming that theater was being taken over by big money. Broadway insiders all but swallowed the key to the city in their rush to hide the welcome mat two years ago when Walt Disney Theatrical Productions moved into the Big Apple with ``Beauty and the Beast.'' They claimed that Broadway was being turned into a theme park and avoided giving the big Tony Awards to the ``Beast.''
The truth is that there is a place for big shows. Yes, there should always be a place for small, intimate theater, but there is also something ingratiating about the fact that an entire generation of little ones is going to be introduced to theater through ``Beauty and the Beast.''
But it isn't cheap. Ticket prices for weekend nights and the matinees go up to $65, and there are no special children's prices.
``Beauty and the Beast'' is reportedly the most expensive production ever on Broadway. What we see is quite mind-boggling - fireworks and Rockettes-style chorus lines of knives and forks.
Five new songs, not in the movie, have been composed by Alan Menken and Tim Rice. The only one that equals the memorable movie tunes is the bombastic ballad ``If I Can't Love Her,'' sung by the Beast at the close of Act I.
The standout, though, continues to be ``Be Our Guest,'' the break-out-all-the-stops anthem that sets all the household utensils to dancing. Matt West's choreography is predictable but lively.
Kim Huber is a lovely and feisty Belle, the first Disney heroine of the feminist era. Frederick C. Inkley is an alternately vulnerable and ferocious Beast. Tony Lawson is a virile and vain Gaston, the local bicep-flexer who proudly sings about how he's covered with hair from head to toe. Betsy Joslyn doesn't seem to have the maturity, though, to get the proper humanity out of Mrs. Potts.
The move southward of ``Beauty and the Beast'' is, indeed, an event in theatrical terms. Neither Godzilla nor King Kong ever had it quite this good. And, besides, they couldn't sing. MEMO: Great Atlantic offers tours on Aug. 11 and Sept. 21 for $89 per
person, including bus transportation and matinee performance. Call
422-9002. ILLUSTRATION: DISNEY color photo
DISNEY photo
"Beast" is the first venture of the Disney empire's theatrical wing. by CNB