on the stage: Beauty & the Beast

at Kuala Lumpur Convention Center

Finally, a musical of worldwide acclaim comes to Malaysia (let's not even talk about Cats, which is feeble at the best of times). This is momentous because most musicals of any note or quality go straight to Singapore, and bypass this place. Possibly due to censorship issues, red tape, and probable demands for bribes & handouts from politicians and customs and immigrations officials and their kind.

Anyway, Beauty & the Beast is running at the Plenary Hall of the Kuala Lumpur Convention Center for the next week or so, I think most tickets are sold out by now. We got the RM250 tickets, but with the CIMB credit card we got a 20% discount on the tix.

The venue was a nice and large one, but we had to sit quite far away from the stage, so we couldn't really see the actors very clearly. At least the view was unobstructed. Air-conditioning was adequate but the foyer area was rather too small to handle such a large crowd of people.

The story is quite obvious, it's the same as the Disney movie (this musical is also produced by Disney). So I'm not going to bother going into details about it here. They just had to add additional scenes and songs to extend the production (you wouldn't pay hundreds of $$$ just for a quick 1 1/2 hour show, would you?!)

For the most part, the production was alright. Definitely not the standard we'd expect from an international production. The sound system was poor, highs were overly amplified, bass was not sufficient, and voices cut in and out occasionally. The balancing between voices was also quite poor. Sometimes one voice would overpower the others.

Acting was average at best as well. Nothing overly stood out in terms of the acting quality. The choreography was really poor, while the stage was really too small to hold something of this caliber and magnitude. It really caused problems with the movement and I think really stretched the audiences' suspension of disbelief.

Let's see, what about the music? It is a musical after all, and a Disney musical to boot. I'd say that the music was also very average. The actors for Belle, the Beast, Lumiere and Lefou were alright, but Gaston was really unsuitable and underpowered for the role, and he tended to fudge the higher notes (and he was definitely not ripped like the real Gaston! He actually looked kinda scrawny). Besides a few real instruments like the trumpet and double bass, most of the orchestral parts were synthesized and it really showed, especially in parts like the strings. Also, many of the songs were done too slowly, resulting in a very insipid tempo and performance.

All in, it was a good experience to finally get to see this (after 14 years, this debuted on Broadway in 1994) but it left much to be desired. I wish we could get some good musicals with some actual quality. This production really wasn't actually worthy of the Disney name, and certainly didn't live up to the standards that Disney would have required from their Broadway or West End productions.

Venue: 6.5/10
Acting: 6/10
Orchestra: 4/10 *fail*
Choreography: 3/10 *fail*
Sound system: 2/10 *fail*

key roles
Belle: 7/10
Beast: 8/10
Gaston: 2/10 *fail*

key songs
Belle: 3/10 (much to slow to be effective) *fail*
Gaston: 1/10 (really, really insipid performance) *fail*
Be Our Guest: 2/10 (really disappointing and bad choreography) *fail*
If I Can't Love Her: 8/10 (really the best performance of the evening)
Beauty and the Beast: 6/10 (ok performance by Mrs. Potts)

overall: 5/10

P/S: yes, folks, I did bump into people I know there. As many of you say, it's inevitable.