BEAUTY AND THE BEAST. To 12 January.
Leeds.
BEAUTY AND THE BEAST
by Mike Kenny.
West Yorkshire Playhouse (Courtyard Theatre) To 12 January 2008.
Mon-Sat various dates 10am, 1pm, 6.30pm.
no performance 31 Dec, 1, 7 Jan.
Audio-described 2 Jan 6.30pm, 11 Jan 10am.
BSL Signed 5 Jan 1pm.
Captioned 4 Jan 6.30pm.
Runs 1hr 35min One interval.
TICKETS: 0113 213 7700.
www.wyp.org.uk
Review: Timothy Ramsden 19 December.
How are the mighty fallen; or, how even the finest can stumble.
Between them, playwright Mike Kenny and director Gail McIntyre have provided stimulating productions in recent winters at the West Yorkshire Playhouse. Several have been held in the theatre’s Barber studio, so an upgrade to the Courtyard auditorium seems in order. But, somehow, though the result isn’t quite negligible, it doesn’t have the fine coherence, the imaginative integration of script and physical production, of earlier shows.
Beauty itself doesn’t help. It’s the most intractable of traditional tales, not a true folk story, and built upon a shuttle-service between the Beast’s magic castle and Beauty’s home. The horrid sisters and weak, impoverished father are imported from other tales, but the magic elements sit uneasily with the realistic background of merchant ships going astray, and don’t have a clear psychological counterpart.
But despite Kenny’s long, distinguished record writing for young people of different ages, his script doesn’t find any sure line through the story. His main innovation, that Beauty’s an only child and incorporates the good and selfish aspects normally shared out among three sisters, is psychologically acute but hardly fits the story. It’s unclear what she learns at the Beast’s lair, or how it affects her behaviour, things Kenny’s line leads audiences to focus on. Nor does the Beast’s ultimate identity have much clear significance.
In place of previous years’ focused physicality there’s a lot of fussing around. With an audience of 3+ the opening busyness of the quartet of servants who take on all the roles, as they chatter to audience members, risks puzzling younger members and making older ones impatient. Barney George’s set, with its high walls of newspaper-stories, is as dominant as the set for Kenny’s adaptation of Flat Stanley a year ago. But there the design was integral to action; here it’s an unhelpful setting on a different scale from the small-cast, quick-moving action.
It’s as if writer and director had different things in mind, or as if an original idea had taken an unexpected direction. The result lacks clarity and focus, leaving the actors full of sound and fury trying hard to signify something to the audience.
Cook: Louisa Eyo.
Boots/Beast: Dominic Gately.
Father/Butler: C P Hallam.
Maid/Beauty: Katie Matthews.
Director: Gail McIntyre.
Designer: Barney George.
Lighting: Malcolm Rippeth.
Sound: Mic Pool.
Composer: Richard Taylor.
Assistant director: Justin Audibert.
2007-12-26 12:53:58