Beauty and The Beast at Playlovers (Regal Theatre)
Fri, 12 Sept 2008, 12:01 pmAsta93 posts in thread
Beauty and The Beast at Playlovers (Regal Theatre)
Fri, 12 Sept 2008, 12:01 pmWednesday afternoon...I'm just about to leave work boasting to everyone that tonight I'm off to go watch the opening night of Beauty and the Beast. "Ha ha ha!" I say to everyone as I smugly leave my office boasting that my night is going to be markably more entertaining than anything they are likely to do...then my phone rings.
ABSOLUTELY SHATTERED!!! I'm sure my situation was not the only one on that Wednesday afternoon. I heard of some people who didn't even get a phone call from Ticketek to tell them the shows opening night had been cancelled. Opening night cancelled??? How could that possibly happen? But thankfully I was able to switch my tickets for Thursday night and can I say first of all WOW!!! So let's not dwell on why the show had to wait a day to open and rather focus on the show.
First of all the highly debated sets and costumes. These were wonderful and in a show like Beauty and the Beast it is really essential for these to be of the standard they were. When the castle was first revealed on stage there was a roar of applause from the audience as they felt truely overwhelmed by the sheer size and effectiveness of the set. The costumes as well were an absolute delight. I was reading in the West Australian that they had a former professional costumer working with the Playlovers production (please correct me if I'm wrong) and can I say it truely paid off. I was concerned about being able to see the emotion of the Beast (after all he is in a very heavy mask) but the actors commitment to the character and the freedom of the costume allowed for all this to still come through.
The music was amazingly overwhelming. Very powerful and of an incredibly high standard. Craig Dalton (surprisingly young looking in such a huge role as musical director) is to be commended on his ability to direct such a fantastically beautiful piece of music for Perth audience.
Without a doubt my favourite part of this show was "Be Our Guest" and really was a chance for the cast to show off their skills and the beautiful costumes. A good strong dancing chorus of both males and females. The plates were girlishly cutesy, with a real playful charm. I can't even imagine trying to dance with something that big attatched to my back (wonderful job girls). The other dancing girls - not sure what they were meant to be - were a little bit more 'grown-up' compared to the plate girls. Beautiful high kicks and well executed partnership dancing. It was a nice difference between the two 'characters' of the female ensemble and gave them something to set them apart and gave them more of a personal character.
The male ensemble was amazing. How Playlovers got so many boys to not only appear on stage but also dance is beyond me. They were wonderfully energetic and performed as individual characters not as one solid group which was particularly effective in their performance of "Gaston" (another of my favourites). I must say I haven't enjoyed drunken men dancing ever before in my life but then these men could actually dance whereas those I meet on a Saturday night more wiggle...anyway I loved it!
Now onto the leads. A wonderful leading cast with some truely standout performance. The BIG standouts were:
Jen Godleman as Belle
Beautiful voice and very convincing character. She seemed a little nervous to begin with and some lines were dropped but not so much that it was distracting. Nerves are a part of opening night and she did a wodnerful job.
Craig Menner as the Beast
What a voice!!! "If I can't love her" was truely amazing. He had an amazing acting range, from being frighteningly scary to being kindhearted and gentle. Amazing actor. I especially liked his excitement as Belle read him the story of King Arthur. Very cute.
Kim Godleman as Lumiere
An absolute delight to watch. The physicality he portrayed was wonderful and the chemistry between him and Babette was very cute and believable to watch. Wonderfull performance.
Hayley Mayne, Genevieve Newman and Kylie Baker as the silly girls
These three girls stole the show everytime they were on stage. Absolutely adorable to watch and very very funny.
The entire cast and crew should be commeneded on this production. After months of bitching, whinging, complaining, disasters, triumphs and enjoyment the show finally went on and it was FANTASTIC!!! Good luck for the rest of the production and I will definetly be spending $60 to go see it again.
Feedback for the cast
Mon, 29 Sept 2008, 03:16 amI went and saw the show on Thurs 25th with my partner. Both of us had never attended a musical or a theatre show of any sort so we didnt know what to expect. Although I was confident it would be great on the sole reason that I adored the movie and the soundtrack as a child.
The day before the show I found this website and I read the reviews to gain about bit more knowledge about the show. I was pleasantly surprised to know that they were local performers, gave me more incentive to come along and support them, through this show and future shows.
I read about Jason Arrows performance as Gaston, that he apparently hadnt quite played the character well or he had changed it (something along those lines) so on the night I was sure to be keeping an eye on his performance.
Lets just say, he was nothing short of fantastic!
I have seen this movie a trillion times as a kid and I know that Jason really narrowed down his character, right down to his voice. The only minor thing was that there were points where he had to sing very low notes and the music sort of overpowered that, making it hard to hear him. I understand that must be very difficult, but he completely blew me away when he hit the stronger higher notes. Just loved the power in that voice during the 'mob song'. Fantastic!
Jennifer Godleman - what can I say. You did an incredible job of portraying this beautiful princess all girls aspire to be as children. Youre voice is incredible. My partner sort of drifted out of focus every time a song came on - but whenever YOU sang, my goodness! You can hear a pin drop in the room. All eyes and ears are glued on you, girl.
Gareth Tay - you did a wonderful job! You sing so beautifully, so soft it makes hearts melt. I understand it wouldve been difficult acting let alone singing in that mask. The only thing I was hoping for, after seeing how great and scary the masked looked, was some growling. The look of the beast on stage has you anticipating some animalistic sounds every now and then.
Cogsworth (forgive me, I left the programme at mums house & forgot your name)- you were probably the one person who narrowed his character down EXACTLY like the one on the movie. Your voice, everything! It was great.
Kim Godleman - you werent exactly like the movie character, but that wasnt such a bad thing. The way you portrayed Lumiere was slightly different, but simply wonderful. Youre character was still very loveable. In fact, during intermission I was passing mothers who were putting on french accents for their kids to make them laugh. The kids were quoting things you had said.
And despite the comments on this forum, I think Lefou was great! True, his voice did dominate the others and his performance was 'overboard'..but thats his character! Acting has to be exaggerated, especially with a character like that, thats what makes it enjoyable to watch.
Susan - your performance was just lovely. Seeing you on stage always brought a smile to my face. You also have an amazing and controlled singing voice. Just lovely. You sung it much better than Angela Landsbury =) Congratulations on the show. True lovers of Art will truly appreciate all the hard work that wouldve gone into this production.
And to all I havent mentioned:
Each and every actor, youre prescence makes all that more difference to the show. You all did wonderfully.
Have to give credit for the stage sets, the orchestra and even the lighting. The stage sets were beautifully made, the orchestra was wonderful to listen to and the lighting was perfect. There was one scene I think was taken in the castle and there was a beautiful transition of colours through the lighting.
It may be a small thing but I appreciate the beauty in it and the efforts behind creating it.
I hope you all can take this on board. It was my first musical, but surely will not be the last thanks to this brilliant performance. I really hope to see you all in other productions in the future. Ill be looking out for you when Im looking to book another show.
Thanks for a great night and making a great change to our outings. We will definetly be picking theatre over a movie night any day!
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