From Istanbul to Manila ‘Beauty & the Beast’ starts tour in a city as old as time
Istanbul, without a doubt, is one of the most storied and exotic ancient cities in the world — its streets and mosques, its markets and waters still bearing traces of both the Byzantine and Ottoman empires. On the banks of the Bosphorus Strait and the green hills beyond it sit old palaces and modern glass villas, some of them owned by families whose roots go back to the Ottoman Empire. In this city that straddles both Asia and Europe, the calls for prayers from the mosques compete with the aggressive haggling inside the Grand Bazaar, one of Europe’s oldest markets with 4,000 stores.
In the center of Istanbul’s old district in Sultanahmet are two spectacular monuments to religion — Hagia Sophia (first built by the Roman Emperor Constantine as a Christian church, then it was turned into an Islamic mosque and is now a museum), and the Blue Mosque, which today remains a place of worship and a tourist attraction.
Not very far is a newly opened “monument,” one dedicated to the performing arts: Zorlu Center PSM, a gleaming center with a beautiful theater connected to a mall with upscale designer shops and gourmet restaurants including one by Jamie Oliver.
Last week, a story unfolded at Zorlu Theater — “a tale as old as time,” if you will.
Beauty & the Beast (BATB), the original Broadway musical based on the 1991 Disney animated film, kicked off its international tour — the first tour outside North America by Broadway Entertainment Group, which owns the international rights to the Disney musical. From Istanbul, BATB will make its way through the Middle East (Abu Dhabi and Dubai) to Europe (Milan) and then Southeast Asia starting in Manila from Jan. 9 to 25 at the Cultural Center of the Philippines (CCP) with local partner Ovation Productions.
On their opening night in Istanbul, the cast, which is mostly composed of young American stage actors and singers, is given a standing ovation by the Turkish audience that filled the 2,000-seat Zorlu Theater.
It is as if the entire city was singing Be Our Guest and meant it. “Ma cherie, Mademoiselle. It is with deepest pride and greatest pleasure that we welcome you tonight.”
What a great welcome indeed for BATB’s 20th year as a musical. It is, after all, the very first Broadway show produced by Disney Theatrical Productions (The Lion King, Aladdin and others would soon follow) and it got nine Tony nominations when it opened in 1994. It ran for 13 years on Broadway and in 2004 Disney began licensing the title, making it a global phenomenon that has been staged in 22 countries by professional theater companies, communities and schools.
With lyrics by Howard Ashman and Tim Rice, and music by Alan Menken, BATB has some of the most memorable songs from a movie-turned-musical and the show has been seen by over 35 million people, which according to Playbill is the “equivalent of a run of 67 years.”
Sixty-seven years!
The 1994 Beauty & the Beast creative team was assembled again for the international tour. Director Rob Roth, who was 29 years old when he was first approached by Disney to direct the Broadway version, gathered his team to re-do this international version — not radically different from the one he first directed but two decades have seen so much advancement in technology that scenic design (by Stanley A. Meyer) and costume design (by Ann Hould-Ward) are now more colorful, elaborate, dramatic and easier on the actors who don heavy costumes.
“I’m very excited about the show now as I was the first time. This is the best version of BATB there’s ever been. We’ve taken all that we’ve learned from all the other BATBs that we’ve done. We cut two songs, added another song, redesigned the set considerably from the original show, and as a team we’re all really excited to bring this version around the world,” says director Roth. “It’s a very different scenic design and one reason is that technology got so much better — lighting shrunk, so now you could put lights inside things. The whole show is about seeing past someone’s exterior and right into their interior, we took that to the design as well. Now (the set) is in layers, you could see things through other things. The costume construction is completely different, too. In the past, things were literally made out of steel, like steel cages for the ball gowns, now they’re using polycarbonate fiber that’s very light and now the actors can dance better.”
In the 20 years that intervened between the first staging of BATB and this year, Roth worked on other Broadway shows, directing Lestat, based on the Anne Rice novel, and in collaboration with Elton John who wrote the music; and Aida, also with Elton John. Next year, he is directing a play he wrote himself called Warhol-Capote: Strange Dents. The play is based on conversations between artist Andy Warhol and writer Truman Capote, taken from 59 pieces of 90-minute cassette tapes that the two recorded in preparation for doing a play together. Alas, that never became a reality…but will in a way be in Roth’s play because the director imagined how one conversation — based on the 59 cassettes — must have gone.
Roth reflects on the first staging of BATB, and why it has lasted through the years. “I was given an unbelievable opportunity by Disney to direct something at that young age. Beauty & the Beast is a worldwide hit because children understand it, parents and grandparents love it. It’s about looking past the exterior and looking to see the beautiful part of people. That’s a nice message to bring to the world.”
If your memory is as old as time as well, let me refresh it. Beauty & the Beast is the classic story of Belle, an independent and smart young village woman, and the Beast, a prince who was turned into a hideous creature by an enchantress that he refused to help. The spell can only be broken if the Beast can learn to love and be loved in return, and then he will transform into the prince once again. Included in the curse are his servants who in the movie are already inanimate objects — but in the musical the script is a little different. Lumiere, Cogsworth, Mrs. Pots and Chip are still human that are slowly turning into objects and will become so for eternity if the spell is not broken. It does make more sense and adds drama to the story.
There is also Gaston, the narcissistic suitor of Belle who, upon her rejection, plots to put her inventor father in the asylum and to kill the Beast when he realizes that she has fallen in love with the creature.
It took a year to cast the international touring show. Roth and his team saw 7,000 actors and chose 32, auditioning them in New York, Orlando, Atlanta, Chicago and LA. “We found not only the most talented people but also the nicest,” he says. “When I’m working on a show, I want to have a good time, I want to have fun. And I am the most creative when I am relaxed and having an enjoyable time. So when you cast people that are talented, are serious about it and also want to have a good time, you have the best time.”
Beauty & the Beast is about the transformative power of love, of kindness, of magic — and a little of that magic happened off the stage as well.
Actors Hilary Maiberger, who plays Belle, and Darick Pead, who plays the Beast, never met before they rehearsed when they got their parts originally for the US Tour two years ago.
“I found it odd,” she says, “that we weren’t asked to audition together” on their callbacks. But that would not have mattered, because when they did meet on the first day of rehearsals, she said, “Immediately, Darick and I had unbelievable chemistry. He is one of my best friends and we will remain friends, I think, for the rest of our lives. I got very, very lucky. I think our chemistry onstage is very powerful and believable because we do care about each other.”
Darick says the same thing of that first day. “We just clicked immediately.”
“Sometimes you can’t help it, you get carried away by the love story,” says Hilary. “And I think that’s okay.”
Not surprisingly, the chemistry is off stage, too. BATB’s company manager tells us that, yes, Hilary and Darick “are dating.”
Helping to bring life and laugher to the story are Hassan Nazari-Robati as Lumiere, James May as Cogsworth, Adam Dietlein as Gaston, Emily Mattheson as Mrs. Potts, Paul Crane as Maurice (Belle’s father), and Jordan Aragon as Lefou (Gaston’s sidekick).
The dishes sing and dance, the clock and the teapot wax nostalgic about their humanness, the tiny cup wonders — in his heartbreakingly young voice — if he will ever be a boy again. The Beast growls and throws quite funny hissy fits, and nearly gets a heart attack at the thought that he must say “please,” and Belle — beautiful Belle— stands her ground even as her heart melts at being shown a library and told all the books are hers for the reading. And Gaston? Think of Johnny Bravo or your local gym rat who takes selfies between bench presses.
They all do this in what is sometimes a very colorful, fast-changing set that feels too much like Las Vegas, but other times the set is very lovely and poignant with the moon hanging low as love is hesitatingly revealed. The candelabra bows and spins and lights up its wicks, his Frenchness making itself felt with his double entendres and lust.
Oh Lumiere, oh the French!
It’s colorful, fun, funny and sad — all the things that Ovation Productions president and CEO thinks the Filipino audiences would love. Renen has been promoting concerts in the Philippines for 35 years and BATB is his first stage musical. “It’s funny, when I first met Liz Koops, CEO of Broadway Entertainment Group, which owns the international rights to BATB, it was like I was auditioning.” Seriously, he sang for her — songs from My Fair Lady and The Sound of Music.
It is the universal theme of love and discovering someone’s kindness — as Belle did when the Beast fought off the wolves that attacked her in the forest without thinking of his own safety — and falling in love that will surely be a hit with Filipino children and adults.
And that damn title song that keeps playing in our heads: “Tale as old as time, tune as old as song…Bitter sweet and strange, finding you can change… Learning you were wrong, certain as the sun, rising in the east…”
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Beauty & the Beast’s Manila tour starts on Jan. 9, 2015. Tickets are now available at www.ticketworld.com.ph. Call 891-9999 for inquiries.
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