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Woman Around Town’s Editor Charlene Giannetti and writers for the website talk with the women and men making news in New York, Washington, D.C., and other cities around the world. Thanks to Ian Herman for his wonderful piano introduction.

Audra McDonald

Beauty and the Beast – Live Action Disney Film is a Gem

03/03/2017

The Disney magic has struck again.

The studio’s live action remake, with a superbly talented cast, breath-taking sets, lavish costumes, and special effects that enhance rather than detract, surpasses the original 1991 animated classic. With the previous film, as well as the stage version, in the rear view mirror, and with La La Land whetting the public’s appetite for more musical films, Beauty and the Beast’s timing couldn’t be better.

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Dan Stevens as the Beast

Director Bill Condon leads a production team that manages to do everything right. Condon, whose film adaptation of the Broadway hit Dreamgirls, won two Academy Awards and three Golden Globes, also knows his way around a script. He won an Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay for Gods and Monsters which he also directed. The screenplay by Stephen Chbosky and Evan Spiliotopoulos builds on the original, filling in some of the backstory about Belle and the Prince/Beast. The score with music by Alan Menken and lyrics by Tim Rice, retains the songs in the animated version, while eliminating some from the stage version, and adding several that serve to advance the story in key moments.

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Emma Watson as Belle and Luke Evans as Gaston

The cast, many of whom had worked with Condon before, trusted his vision and were eager to sign on for this mission. Emma Watson, known to younger audiences as Hermione Granger in the Harry Potter films, is radiant as Belle, projecting the heroine’s intelligence and kindness, but also her bravery when faced with danger. Her face lights up the screen and her singing voice projects a sweet innocence which befits her character.

Dan Stevens, the doomed Downton Abbey heir, might seem an odd choice to play the Prince who, because of his selfishness, is turned into the Beast by an enchantress. Yet he attacks (in some scenes quite literally), the role with relish. While the Beast is a fully digital character (according to the press notes the actor wore stilts and a prosthetics muscle suit with a grey bodysuit during filming), Stevens was determined to display the fine line between man and beast, striving to make his live action character “more dimensional than the Beast from the animated film.” He succeeds, revealing the human trapped inside a horrible-looking animal, particularly when singing the lament “Evermore,” a new addition to the score.
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Kevin Kline as Maurice and Emma Watson as Belle

Belle’s father has evolved from the zany inventor in the animated version to an artist who creates beautiful, ornate music boxes. Kevin Kline’s mere presence adds depth to any scene he’s in. His Maurice projects a father’s love, but beneath the surface there’s a sadness about the past. (Through the magic of a mirror, the Beast takes Belle back to her life in Paris and she understands the secrets Maurice holds in his heart.) Kline’s Maurice is not without humor, especially when he encounters some of the talking objects in the Beast’s castle, and he delivers a stirring “How Does a Moment Last Forever,” another new song.

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Josh Gad as LeFou and Luke Evans as Gaston

Gaston’s resume has been beefed up, transforming him into a war hero who saved Villenueve, the fictional French village, from invaders. What hasn’t been altered is Gaston’s quick-trigger temper, his oversized ego, and his inability to accept Belle’s refusal to marry him. Welsh actor Luke Evans brings his stage presence and booming baritone to the “role he was born to play,” according to Condon. Paired with Josh Gad as Gaston’s sidekick LeFou, Evans takes advantage of Gad’s impeccable comic timing to make the interaction between the two fun to watch. (There’s been much pre-publicity – both positive and negative – about LeFou’s obvious attraction to the manly Gaston.)

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The Castle Objects

Those who signed on as the humans doomed to live as various objects in the Beast’s castle until the spell is broken, include a mind-boggling group of A-list actors. For most of the film, they are voicing the characters, but they are seen briefly in the beginning and finally emerge in the flesh at the end. They include: Ewan McGregor as Lumière, the candlestick holder; Stanley Tucci as Cadenza, a harpsichord; Audra McDonald, as Madame de Garderobe the wardrobe; Gugu Mbatha-Raw, as Plumette, the feather duster; Ian McKellen, as the clock, Cogsworth; Emma Thompson as the teakettle, Mrs. Potts; and Nathan Mack as the teacup, Chip. Hattie Morahan who lurks around the village as the homeless woman, Agatha, is actually the Enchantress who casts the spell on the Prince.

Production Designer Sarah Greenwood, responsible for the visual aspect of the film, led a team of more than 1,000 crew members who worked to create the sets that would mimic those in the animated film. These sets built on the backlot at Shepperton Studios outside London, include: the fictional town of Villeneuve; the castle’s ballroom, with a floor made from 12,000 square feet of faux marble; Belle’s bedroom; and the castle’s library holding thousands of books created specifically for the production. The largest set – 9,600 square feet – is the forest surrounding the castle which included real trees, hedges, a frozen lake, a set of 29-foot high ice gates, and about 20,000 icicles.

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Ballroom

Costumes are period perfect and eye-catching. Designer Jacqueline Durran’s team, made up of embroiders, milliners, jewelers, painters, and textile artists, worked for three months before filming began. That lead time was necessary since Durran wanted to create sustainable costumes from fair-trade fabrics. The greatest challenge was designing that iconic yellow dress that Belle wears when dancing with the Beast in the castle’s ballroom. Made from 180 feet of feather-light satin organza, the dress used up 3,000 feet of thread. All that attention to detail pays off. Belle’s gown glows in that dance number, a high point in a film with many high points.

In a cynical world, the “tale as old as time,” never gets old. Disney’s new version continues that legacy.

Photos courtesy of Walt Disney Studios

Beauty and the Beast opens nationwide on March 17, 2017.

Shuffle Along – Or The Making of The Musical Sensation of 1921 And All That Followed

05/23/2016

An Appreciation

Pound for pound this musical showcases more talent than half the new productions on Broadway combined. Almost every superb black performer you might recall from recent years of theater and music is on this stage.The artistic team is crackerjack.

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Brandon Victor Dixon and Joshua Henry

Critical voices have been raised in regard to the piece’s two hour forty minute running time to which I respond, yes, it could’ve been shorter without losing a whit of pith or entertainment value, but so what? Journalists and historians have also weighed in on George C. Wolfe’s decision to downplay such things as the application of blackface, on-the-road segregation, and theatrical naysayers. When important, of-the-time-author Carl Van Vechten denies the musical’s place in future collective memory, we realize a cultural response which is not otherwise emphasized.

As we see glimpses of blackface, exposition there seems missing. Otherwise, it’s a case of not being all things to all people.  (An attempt at rounding up history occurs with biographical epilogues.)

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Brandon Victor Dixon and Audra McDonald

Noble Sissle and Eubie Blake met in 1915. As The Dixie Duo, they were the first negro performers to eschew blackface. The collaborators provided songs for the musical in question and respectively had long, successful, musical and theatrical careers. Producer/Performers F. E. Miller and Aubrey Lyles became friends as students and then a vaudeville comedy team. They both produced and performed in this 1921 show (here, in traditional blackface to which, one would have thought, their partners might’ve objected), afterwards mounting and writing others.

Sissle, Blake, Miller and Lyles encountered one another at an NAACP benefit where the vaudeville team performed a sketch called ‘The Mayor of Jimtown.’ Finding themselves likeminded, the four decided to turn it into a show about a small town election, creating the first all black musical to viably compete with Broadway productions.

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Adrienne Warren, Brian Stokes Mitchell, Billy Porter, Audra McDonald and The Ensemble

After a grueling, squabbling hand-to-mouth tour, Shuffle Along landed at an off the grid West 63rd Street Theater without an orchestra pit, where, to everyonelse’s surprise, it ran 500 performances. It wasn’t that its flimsy book or staging were innovative, but rather that this black cast and creative team showcased energy, ebullience, and talent as skilled as anything on 42nd Street. The landmark production nurtured young performers like Josephine Baker, Florence Mills, and Paul Robeson, revising expectations and opening the door to black revues outside of Harlem.

Brian Stokes Mitchell (F.E. Miller) not only returns to The Great White Way with bankable, resonant vocals and signature style, he tap dances! Billy Porter (Aubrey Lyles), last seen cavorting in Kinky Boots, sings, dances, displays terrific comic flair without regressing into parody and, turning serious at the last, brings it home.

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            Joshua Henry, Brandon Victor Dixon, Billy Porter, Brian Stokes Mitchell,                   Richard Riaz Yoder

Brandon Victor Dixon of the musical Motown, is utterly charming as the pixilated, two-timing Eubie Blake. Dixon taps, sings, and acts with naturalness that allows us to excuse the character’s weaknesses much as Lottie does during their on again/off again affair. His reaction to a mouse is priceless. Joshua Henry (Noble Sissle), who was unequivocally great in The Scottsboro Boys, here lightens up without losing an iota of authenticity or grace. And oh, that voice!

Adrienne Warren (Gertrude Saunders/Florence Mills) delivers a sassy performance with bright-eyed finesse and nimble footwork while veteran Brooks Ashmanskas plays a slew of roles, each with pitch perfect comic timing and precision dancing he makes look ridiculously easy.

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Audra McDonald

As to the visibly pregnant Audra McDonald (go quickly lest you miss her!), she’s simply magnificent. Fully inhabiting Lottie Gee who was herself, a regal cut above the environment in which she achieved fame, the artist’s vocals, acting, and yes, tap dancing, are a veritable joy to behold.

Daryl Waters’s Music Supervision, Arrangements & Orchestrations are immensely clear and rich. (Sound Design-Scott Lehrer) Choreography by Savion Glover is exuberant, loose-limbed, gorgeously synchronized, and feels fresh, though its underpinnings reflect the era. Company numbers are a master class. The visual creative team excels with Ann Roth’s Costumes and Mia M. Neal’s Hair Design original, yet accurate stand-outs.

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Adrienne Warren and The Ensemble

If you’re anything of a theater-goer, you know there’s been a fracas about whether the musical is a revival or an original, the latter putting it in competition for the juggernaut called Hamilton. In the opinion of this journalist, book writer George C. Wolfe’s framing device as indicated in the show’s subtitle, should have set it firmly in the latter category.  Though there are lots of recreated numbers, the story of its artistic collaboration provides vertebrae. Alas, my view is among a minority.

Photos by Julieta Cervantes
Opening: The Ensemble

Shuffle Along
Or The Making of The Musical Sensation of 1921 And All That Followed
Music and Lyrics by Noble Sissle and Eubie Blake
Original Book by F.E. Miller and Aubry Lyles
Book by George C. Wolfe
Directed by George C. Wolfe
The Music Box Theater
239 West 45th Street