The 2012 Summer Stage Review: Volume 1

Beauty and the Beast at the Four Seasons Performing Arts Centre, Toronto (NETworks / Dancap)

The Toronto Star gave the production one and a half stars out of four.

That sounds about right.

Where to begin?  The cast just wasn't up to scratch for a "Big Broadway Tour".  Many of them are either fresh out of theatre school or are still studying, and it's pretty evident.  It's hard to imagine why the actor playing the Beast was cast.  He wasn't a great singer, he wasn't a great actor (though the entire production felt like a Panto gone wrong), and he wasn't cast for his physical stature -- he was notably average/short among the cast.  Belle was nasally and Lumiere was confusingly lecherous.  And Lefou? Oh, how I wanted someone to drag Lefou off the stage and not allow his return.

And long?  It felt like an eternity!  Despite its two-and-a-half hour running time and some cuts from the Broadway production (two songs completely eliminated), the show felt like three hours or more, and with so much hammy, overblown characterizations on stage, I was still bored.  It had the feel of a show in which the actors had forgotten the motivations behind all of the blocking and choreography, so the actions themselves had gotten bigger and more cartoonish (even more so thanks to a never-ending barrage of slapstick sound effects) while the meanings and purposes had gotten smaller.  Ug.

For my money, I'll take the production from Theatre Aquarius several years back any day over today's hamfisted nonsense.