Comparison Of Gta's Beauty And The Beast

Beauty and the Beast, music by Alan Menken and Book by Linda Woolverton, is a tony-nominated Disney stage classic based off of the Oscar Nominated and world-renowned Disney movie. Produced in many forms and facets over it’s 12 years of existence, this musical has evolved to be able to take on multiple shapes depending on the company producing. All of it aided by an evergreen script and score, but the details and designs brought to the table by each individual company change the show drastically. Elements including acting choices, lighting, choreography, scenic design, sound, etc. and their successes and failures all take part in making an individual show what it is. The producing company of The Gainesville Theatre Alliance took on this show

Similar to the Broadway and National Touring productions, and pointed out by the DC Metro Arts editorial in a review of the touring production, “They see that the fable plays out in a succession of storybook visions and effects framed by elaborate scrims, proscenium drops and smoky stage effects” (Harding 1). The production put on by GTA achieved that in the same fashion. With lighting design by Conor McVey and scenic design by Dennis Maulden, the show was very storybook-esque with the grand false proscenium decorated with the trim and design of an “ancient fairytale book” and a scrim to set up elaborate depth and dimension that you might find in a painting or illustration on stage. The same smoky stage effects mentioned in the review from DC Metro Arts were found in this production that similarly softened the picture on stage and made it seem like scene out of the movie or an illustration in a book presented live on stage. Much like John Harding mentioned in his review of the national touring cast’s production of Beauty and The Beast, the show played out in a series of storybook visions at the Hosch Theater in Gainesville. These atmospheric effects assisted the audience in really being enveloped in the storybook world of the show. A sunrise on a little French town or a dungeon in a dark castle, the audience reacted and was drawn in to this world because of the fairytale

Many productions and companies struggle with this. According to a review published in The Greater New Orleans Times, the production of Beauty and the Beast that played at the Saenger Theatre in New Orleans offered a lack of genuineness and “conveyed limited degrees of emotion” (Mahne 1). Theodore Mahne, the theatre critic of The Greater New Orleans Times, also noted that the performance was played too silly and didn’t allow for any real human connection with audience members. Mahne stated that the Enchanted Household and Gaston, the supporting characters, were played one dimensional and were funny but incredibly static. Overall, Mahne said, it was played too silly and “cartoonish”, but for a show with a real human message and a story that anyone can love, the performance needs to extend beyond a youth theatre performance. In a show like Beauty and the Beast, you need to try to get the aesthetic distance between the audience and show as close as possible without losing any of the excited, larger than life energy. GTA’s production did this beautifully. The supporting cast of enchanted household items, though silly and farcical in concept, had moments of raw sincerity and vulnerability to leave the audience wondering why it was getting teary eyed