"Beauty and the Beast," 6th Street Playhouse, Santa Rosa, CA

Amiee Conn as Belle and Tika Moon as Mrs.
Potts are featured in the 6th Street Playhouse
production of Team Disney's 'Beauty and the Beast.'

Beauty: 1; Beast: 0

Article Launched: 08/15/2007 01:31:16 PM PDT

By Mark Langton
IJ Correspondent


There are moments in the lavish new 6th Street Playhouse musical production of "Beauty and the Beast" when actor Devin McConnell (who plays the Beast) does the best impression of Liza Minnelli you ever saw.

Bordering, as it does, so closely to a "Beach Blanket Babylon"-style high camp extravaganza, it seems only fitting, actually, that this Beast have all the ferocity of a toy poodle. This is a show for children, after all.

Apart from (or due to?) this odd (or, perhaps, perfect?) bit of casting, director Holly Vinson and her indefatigable artistic director Argo Thompson either have a little beauty of a show or an unwieldy bete noir on their hands - again, depending on your point of view.

And judging from the looks on the faces of the kids in last Saturday's opening night audience - and keeping in mind that they are the most important people in the room - as seen through their eyes this production is, indeed, a beauty to behold, spectacular in execution, mind-boggling in scope, and maybe even life-altering for one or two of the tiny theatergoers, in their little world. And who are we to argue with that?

Starring McConnell as the Beast and Amiee Conn (who will alternate with Jenifer Cote) as Belle, this all-too faithful realization of a Team Disney production, with music by Alan Menken, lyrics by Howard Ashman and Tim Rice and book by Linda Woolverton, features a multi-generational cast of seasoned professionals performing alongside young students from all over the North Bay who attend the 6th Street Playhouse School of Drama.

The 1991 Disney film, on which the stage musical is based, was the first full-length animated feature to be nominated for an Academy Award for Best Picture, and with good reason. The film ranked then (and ranks today) as one of Disney's finest - funny, moving, and with great performances across the board. Anyone familiar with the genre recognized immediately that this was arguably the first Disney-animated feature to successfully utilize all of the elements of the classic American stage musical, so it came as a surprise to no one when it was announced that it was to be taken to Broadway.

For anyone somehow unfamiliar with the plot, a wicked witch has transformed a handsome prince into a cross between Chewbacca the Wookiee and the Hunchback of Notre Dame, and the staff of his castle into everyday household objects: teacup, dinnerware, feather duster and the like. When it looks as if Belle, the bookish town beauty, might break the curse by falling in love with the Beast, the housewares go nuts.

Hence, the show's first big production number, "Be Our Guest," a first-act showstopper that knows no shame. Its lavishness is something akin to delirium: dinner knives consort with salad forks, napkins do the can-can, placemats do cartwheels and the dish runs away with the spoon - a surreal, Betty Boop cartoon-full of anthropomorphic inanimate objects (picture a kind of Busby Berkeley parade as choreographed by underground cartoonist Robert Crumb). Along with musical director Lucas Sherman and vocal directors Bethany Neese and Sandy Yen, choreographer Kalah Goetting should be commended for making this number alone - given the sheer number of people onstage, many of them inexperienced children - as effortless as a day in Disneyland.

Despite the fact that he is unsuited to playing dark, brooding, strong-but-silent types, McConnell was clearly cast on the strength of his voice - which is a big, strong high tenor that resists electronic distortion. Conn (aka Miss Sonoma 2006), brings solid grace and everything else required for Belle, the quintessential Disney heroine.

The other principals are variously trussed up as steaming teapot (Tika Moon, in the evening's warmest performance), a grandfather clock (the imperious Ross Hagee), overstuffed armoire (a regal Karen Pinomaki) and a feather duster (a sexy turn as a French maid by Katie Kelley). The three best performances Saturday were those of Moon (Mrs. Potts, the teapot), Hagee (Cogsworth, the clock), and Mark Bradbury (Lumiere the candelabrum). Also, hats off to the energetic Scott van der Horst who plays Gaston, Belle's vainglorious suitor. If that isn't a prosthetic double chin, then he must have been a casting director's dream come true.

Honorable mentions must also go to Gene Abravaya, Gaston's hapless sidekick, Le Fou, who has a great face for comedy and bears an uncanny resemblance to Dick Martin (of Rowan and Martin's "Laugh-In" TV fame); all of the outstanding young ensemble players - every one of them - particularly Taylor Tarantino's Chip, the teacup (who will alternate the role with Tesheia van der Horst), who was just as cute as a grin with a chipped tooth.

Any one of Pam Benz and Cynthia Beckley's costume designs would be the envy of a Beaux Arts ball, and David R. Wright's constantly moving, beautifully-rendered cartoon of a set design was the true artistic achievement of the evening.

In the end, it could be said that this Disney musical says far less about the redemptive power of love than it does about the relentless enterprise and canned art of what is called Team Disney.

But the delighted 8-year-old sitting next to me cared not a whit for that.

REVIEW

What: "Beauty and the Beast"

When: 8 p.m. Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays; 2 p.m. Saturdays and Sundays, through Sept. 9. Audiences can meet "Beauty & the Beast" characters after matinee performances.

Where: 6th Street Playhouse, 52 W. Sixth St., Santa Rosa

Tickets: $14 to $30

Contact: 707-523-4185; www.6thstreetplayhouse.com