BEAUTY AND THE BEAST. To 29 June.

Sheffield

BEAUTY AND THE BEAST
by Teresa Ludovico translated by Stuart Rogers

Teatro Kismet at Lyceum Theatre 25-29 June 2002
7.15pm Mat Thu 2pm & Sat 3pm
Runs 1hr 10min + discussion No interval

TICKETS 0114 249 6000
Review Timothy Ramsden 20 June at Oxford Playhouse

Rich, surprising, joyful and moving, this is the kind of theatre all young people should be able to experience. Bella e Bestia is an imaginative voyage highlighted by vivid images. Some are technically based – silhouetted figures, Beast's lonely fury created by his swinging over the audience in deep red light as writer/director Ludovico creates astonishing, pained roars through a microphone from the back of the auditorium.

Others are based in the actors' physicality, in the tradition of this company with its strong emphasis on work for the young - both on international tour and at their home in Bari, Italy, where they work in two theatres and open-air, often with children from deprived backgrounds.

There's nothing cheap or tatty about Kismet's work for the young; no sense of the patronising or apologetic. Nor is it twee; there's genuine alarm as Beast descends through layers of hangings on to the isolated Beauty in what turns out affectionate desire, but could for a time become either rape or ravening harm.

It's only when the final, effortful roars lead Beast to tear off his mask and become fully human, now Beauty loves him, that the fears depart. Then, Beauty can safely parody his bestial roars as the pair use his beast-head, and the rose which began the terror, as toys in their happy game.

There are comic moments, in the bad-tempered rhythmic stomp of Beauty's two selfish Sisters. And mystery, in the Mirror, played by an actor holding a bowl, bringing the play's two worlds together, leading Beauty back to the sick Beast to the pre-recorded strains of Madama Butterfly's Un Bel Di – an aria whose deluded hope is ironically offset by the reuniting of the lovers-to-be.

Or there's the quiet Beast, slumped on the floor while Beauty's back at home, silent behind the fuss among her family – her Father revived from his own comatose sorrow upon her return.

Kismet's work has depth: love, loss, trust and perception are all touched upon. But, rightly – for all theatre possibly, for young people's certainly – they are not discussed verbally but shown in well-paced action, through a series of resonant images, within a comic spirit of joy and ultimate triumph that makes a final 'all lived happily ever-after' neither frivolous nor sentimental.

Mirror: Filippo Ferrante
Beauty: Nunzia Antonino
Sister 1: Lucia Zotti
Sister 2: Monica Contini
Father: Augusto Masiello
Beast: Simone Desiato

Director: Teresa Ludovico
Designer: Luca Ruzza
Lighting: Vincent Longuemare
Sound/Trumpet: Giuliano Di Cesare
Costume: Ruth Keller, Cristina Bari
Choreography: Bianca Papafava

2002-06-21 01:09:42