La Belle et La Bete
Feb. 8th, 2013 03:44 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
magidAlso from early December, and I'm supposed to be ushering on Sunday...
I ended up with free tickets to La Belle et la Bete at the Cutler Majestic thanks to Artisan's Asylum, though I wasn't able to find anyone to take the other one. Which was a shame, since it would've been great to have someone to talk it over with afterward.
It was a retelling of "Beauty and the Beast," of course (what's with all the fairy tales in mainstream culture these days? Three TV shows in the last two years, and likely other stuff I don't know about.), but not at all a story for kids. In this interpretation, the Beauty is an artist who has to deliver something as part of her father's will, to someone who turns out to be the Beast, and they end up in a complicated relationship. He has a history of many other, but paid, women, while she has to decide how important love is to her. Plus there was the interference of the narrator, who turned out to be a mortal-loving fairy, breaking the nth wall.
They didn't always choose directions I liked, but for the most part, it was an enjoyable show.
The most noteworthy part of this production was how they integrated projected material. That was fabulous. There were projectors on the sides and above the stage, bringing the set closer as it showed rain, or vines, and so on. Onstage, there were two white curtains about halfway back , with a gap between them, as well as the curtains on the sides. A lot of the set was projected, with the two curtains sliding across each other as necessary to hide when there were physical objects to be moved. And there was 3D projection as well. There was a horse (which felt overused, actually, kind of filler), and the sister of the Beauty, who was projected onstage as small when she was being the Nice Sister, and as very tall when being the Critical Sister, which totally worked.
The worst part of the show was the audience. There was talking, and people who were eating food that had crackly wrapping, slowly and slowly, driving me a bit batty. The high school audience I'd ushered for some weeks before were so much better behaved!
I ended up with free tickets to La Belle et la Bete at the Cutler Majestic thanks to Artisan's Asylum, though I wasn't able to find anyone to take the other one. Which was a shame, since it would've been great to have someone to talk it over with afterward.
It was a retelling of "Beauty and the Beast," of course (what's with all the fairy tales in mainstream culture these days? Three TV shows in the last two years, and likely other stuff I don't know about.), but not at all a story for kids. In this interpretation, the Beauty is an artist who has to deliver something as part of her father's will, to someone who turns out to be the Beast, and they end up in a complicated relationship. He has a history of many other, but paid, women, while she has to decide how important love is to her. Plus there was the interference of the narrator, who turned out to be a mortal-loving fairy, breaking the nth wall.
They didn't always choose directions I liked, but for the most part, it was an enjoyable show.
The most noteworthy part of this production was how they integrated projected material. That was fabulous. There were projectors on the sides and above the stage, bringing the set closer as it showed rain, or vines, and so on. Onstage, there were two white curtains about halfway back , with a gap between them, as well as the curtains on the sides. A lot of the set was projected, with the two curtains sliding across each other as necessary to hide when there were physical objects to be moved. And there was 3D projection as well. There was a horse (which felt overused, actually, kind of filler), and the sister of the Beauty, who was projected onstage as small when she was being the Nice Sister, and as very tall when being the Critical Sister, which totally worked.
The worst part of the show was the audience. There was talking, and people who were eating food that had crackly wrapping, slowly and slowly, driving me a bit batty. The high school audience I'd ushered for some weeks before were so much better behaved!