'Beauty and Beast' rivals 'Oz'

By Paul Kolas TELEGRAM & GAZETTE REVIEWER

WORCESTER — The Hanover Theatre for the Performing Arts has been chasing the rainbow brilliance of its “The Wizard of Oz” since that production’s October triumph, waiting for another crowd pleaser of similar magnitude and resonance. The wait is over.

“Beauty and the Beast” lumbered into town Friday night, and beneath the weight of its relentlessly resplendent visual barrage, one could hear and feel its heartbeat wend its way through an enraptured audience. Mixing humor and warmth with formulaic ease, it is unadulterated showmanship working at a very high level.

The one-two punch of Matt West’s choreography on “Gaston” and “Be Our Guest” sets into spectacular motion the eye-filling delights of Stanley A. Meyer’s scenic design and Ann Hould-Ward’s costumes. You will feel totally immersed in this fairy tale world, its veracity enhanced by Basil Twist’s puppet design, transforming a beggar lady into a towering enchantress and populating a shadowy forest with leaping, voracious wolves. But it would all be an empty exercise in technical virtuosity without its heartfelt story and this fine production’s enchanting cast.

Liz Shivener fills the part of Belle quite nicely. She’s spunky when she has to be, a lovely emblem of female emancipation in her confrontations with Gaston (Nathaniel Hackmann) and her harrowing Act I tussles with the Beast (Justin Glaser). One of the show’s major pleasures is watching Belle teach her captor some manners, and in the process, open up his heart once again. And Shivener will likely do the same to yours with her terrific vocals on “Home” and “A Change in Me.”

She and Glaser play extremely well off each other in their taming of the beast relationship, adding a touch of humor to the rebuked dinner request scene. Glaser is a commanding presence, by turns scary and scared, fierce and vulnerable. Singing “How Long Must This Go On?” and “If I Can’t Love Her” with anguished intensity, Glaser offers up a surprisingly playful Beast, too, even going so far as to swagger under bookworm Belle’s charming tutelage. When Belle reads him the last lines of “King Arthur,” he warms you with his reverent “that was a beautiful story.”

Shivener and Glaser are surrounded by a memorable cast, none more so than Merritt David Janes’ lilting maitre d’ turned candelabra Lumiere. Armed with melting wax and flaming hands, Janes invests the part with Gallic perfection. He’s stirringly irresistible on “Be Our Guest,” and delivers one of the best puns of the show — “Cherie, you cut me to the wick” — to his teasingly flirty amour, the maid turned feather duster Babette, etched with saucy panache by Erin Elizabeth Coors.

Keith Kirkwood’s Cogsworth — the head of household turned clock — is an endearing complement to Janes’ Lumiere. His extended facial mugging, after entreating us with “and as I always say, ‘If it isn’t baroque, don’t fix it,’ ” prompted considerable laughter.

Hackmann booms his way through the role of Gaston with muscular, comic book funny solipsism. He’s great on the self-serving paean “Gaston,” accompanied by giggling, adoring girls and his dim-witted sidekick Lefou, essayed with amusingly slavish obeisance by the very acrobatic Michael Fatica. Mrs. Potts is in the cheery, exceedingly capable hands of Sabina Petra, who has her shining moment on “Beauty and the Beast.” Christopher Spencer draws considerable empathy as Belle’s father Maurice, although his solo number, “No Matter What,” has been cut from this production. Jen Bechter does a jolly turn as the voluble Madame de la Grande Bouche.

Director Rob Roth weaves the show’s grandiosity and intimacy together into a satisfying whole that ends Hanover Theatre’s Broadway’s Best 2009-2010 lineup on a high note.

‘BEAUTY AND THE BEAST’
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Music by Alan Menken, lyrics by Howard Ashman & Tim Rice, book by Linda Woolverton, directed by Rob Roth, musical supervision and incidental music arrangements by Michael Kosarin, choreography by Matt West. At Hanover Theatre, 2 Southbridge Street, Worcester. Performances today at 1 and 6:30 p.m. Tickets: members, $32-$60; others, $35-$65. For reservations, call (877) 571-SHOW or visit www.thehanovertheatre.org.

With Liz Shivener, Justin Glaser, Nathaniel Hackmann, Michael Fatica, Sabina Petra, Merritt David Janes, Keith Kirkwood, Erin Elizabeth Coors, Christopher Spencer, Jen Bechter, Jeremiah Frank Burch III, Reese Sebastian Diaz and Nate Suggs.