Opinion on Beauty and the Beast- Live on Stage?

Lora Baines Bradley

Lora Baines Bradley

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
I haven't seen the show in a while, but a friend and I watched it on Youtube and were dying of laughter at how bad it was. Gaston could not sing. It was like watching a train wreck: it's terrible, but you can't look away. The costumes have not aged well at all. Belle's yellow dress looked like it came from a party store. Just the mannerisms of the enchanted objects were hilariously awful. I get why some enjoy it, though, since the film is beloved by most. I just don't remember it being that bad. Am I the only one who feels this way?
 
Chef Mickey

Chef Mickey

Well-Known Member
Totally disagree. I've seen it over a hundred times and I can't remember ever thinking the singing or performance was straight up bad.

Actually, while Festival of the Lion King is a better show, it routinely has worse singing, IMO.

I thin Beauty and the Beast does a great job, but shows have been already cut for the Pixar orchestra thing, which is terrible by the way. Could the costumes and props be updated, I suppose.
 
Captain Barbossa

Captain Barbossa

Well-Known Member
As much as I hate to say it, this show has gotten worse the last three times I've seen. It's shorter than it used to be and they've gotten rid of some characters. In terms of singing, Belle either can't sing or her mic isn't turned up enough and you can barely hear her. I still think it's better than Voyage of the Little Mermaid. Wish they can bring the show back to what it used to be.
 
Lora Baines Bradley

Lora Baines Bradley

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
Chef Mickey said:
Totally disagree. I've seen it over a hundred times and I can't remember ever thinking the singing or performance was straight up bad.

Actually, while Festival of the Lion King is a better show, it routinely has worse singing, IMO.

I thin Beauty and the Beast does a great job, but shows have been already cut for the Pixar orchestra thing, which is terrible by the way. Could the costumes and props be updated, I suppose.
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Hmm, maybe it was just the performance I saw? I'll have to try and find it. I don't remember it being bad when I saw it, but the performance on YouTube was cringey. Maybe it's because me and my friend have a tendency to laugh at anything. :D

Funny you mention the Pixar thing- haven't seen it yet, waiting to see it in person, but I am a huge fan of Pixar's soundtracks. ;)
 
Lora Baines Bradley

Lora Baines Bradley

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
Captain Barbossa said:
As much as I hate to say it, this show has gotten worse the last three times I've seen. It's shorter than it used to be and they've gotten rid of some characters. In terms of singing, Belle either can't sing or her mic isn't turned up enough and you can barely hear her. I still think it's better than Voyage of the Little Mermaid. Wish they can bring the show back to what it used to be.
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Was Maurice ever in the show? He wasn't even mentioned in the performance I saw. Belle just shows up at the castle for...reasons?
 
Chef Mickey

Chef Mickey

Well-Known Member
jyn erso said:
For reference, I believe this was the performance I watched:
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Gaston isn't that good, but Belle is not bad to me. This isn't Broadway, which btw isn't always great.

That's probably the worst Gaston I've seen, but you've got to give them a break. They have varying talent and understudies that go in in a pinch (seems maybe the case with this Gaston). They are doing 7 shows a day , so voices get tired and secondary actors have to fill in.
 
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Lora Baines Bradley

Lora Baines Bradley

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
Chef Mickey said:
Gaston isn't that good, but Belle is not bad to me. This isn't Broadway, which btw isn't always great.

That's probably the worst Gaston I've seen, but you've got to give them a break. They have varying talent and understudies that go in in a pinch (seems maybe the case with this Gaston). They are doing 7 shows a day sometimes, so voices get tired and secondary actors have to fill in sometimes.
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I did actually think Belle was pretty good. I understand the acting lifestyle can be tiring, but this is Disney we're talking about. They have the money to hire more actors and produce a consistent, quality show. However, it's obvious they have let it languish for too long. The whole show looks horribly dated, at least in terms of set and costume design.

Cmdr_Crimson said:
Shame they won't go back to shows like this anymore...
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Just from watching the first 10 minutes or so of that, it seems like a much more cohesive show than BATB. BATB is "memorable songs and moments from the movie strung by a thin plot line" and this show is "Mickey and the gang show you how film has progressed over time."

Don't get me wrong, I love the film Beauty and the Beast. I especially think the live action version is fantastic.
 
Chef Mickey

Chef Mickey

Well-Known Member
jyn erso said:
I did actually think Belle was pretty good. I understand the acting lifestyle can be tiring, but this is Disney we're talking about. They have the money to hire more actors and produce a consistent, quality show. However, it's obvious they have let it languish for too long. The whole show looks horribly dated, at least in terms of set and costume design.



Just from watching the first 10 minutes or so of that, it seems like a much more cohesive show than BATB. BATB is "memorable songs and moments from the movie strung by a thin plot line" and this show is "Mickey and the gang show you how film has progressed over time."

Don't get me wrong, I love the film Beauty and the Beast. I especially think the live action version is fantastic.
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You're talking about one show at DHS.

Just look at DHS and EPCOT. You think Beauty and the Beast is at the top of the list? This management doesn't care and will bring a park to its knees before they'll invest out of pure need. They'll slash and close until the park is half open. You think they are going to do something proactively? They'll probably wait until there is a hole worn in the stage before they'll put money into this show.

Bottom line, they don't care...but I do think it needs some TLC. It's just the entire park and EPCOT need TLC a lot worse.
 
nolatron

nolatron

Well-Known Member
We saw Beauty and the Beast for the first time in a looooong time this past March and we enjoyed it. The kids loved it. It's certainly a low-key, simple-set play but I think that's the style they are going for, Something like what a small performance art theatre would do.

Compared to the video above though, the Belle and Gaston we saw were way better. So it may all depend on the cast you get for the show, but we enjoyed it when we saw it.
 
M

macefamily

Well-Known Member
My daughter is a huge Beauty and the Beast fan so it's traditionally the first thing we do when visiting Hollywood Studios. Probably saw the show about 15 times. There were some excellent casts and there were some average ones too. I do remember the one actor who played Gaston; probably five years ago ? The dude was about 6'3" and jacked. He didn't need any fake muscles for his costume, and he could sing really well. I think he was there about two years.
 
T

thomas998

Well-Known Member
jyn erso said:
You would think they would see the potential for a Frozen or Tangled stage show and capitalize on that. Sigh.
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The reality is doing a good show like this is expensive and requires a substantial commitment of time and money... Walt Disney World has shown they are not willing to do that for this type of experience when they gave us "Frozen Ever After"... they capitalized on the Frozen train but unfortunately proved that they simply wanted to extract maximum draw from the content while spending as little as possible.

While Beauty and the Beast is bad, it is still light years ahead of the more recent things like "Frozen Ever After"... Frankly it is a shame they never put on the same quality shows at WDW that they do on the west coast at California Adventure. Aladdin was a good show and it would have been nice if they had moved it to WDW after they closed last year....

And as much as I hate "Frozen Ever After" I don't think the Disney stage version of Frozen is very good at all. If you ever make it out to Anaheim you can see it at California Adventure and it is bad... Not that the show wasn't well written, but the simple fact is a show like Frozen isn't really feasible because of the kids parts in it. In the stage version they have adults running around acting like kids which really just comes across as lame... but probably the only option they have given that if it were done with real kids in the rolls the labor laws for child performers in California would likely result in having either a very limited number of shows per day or required a huge increase in the number of kids hired to do the parts.... In the end some shows just don't make a good transition to stage - Frozen is one of them.
 

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