Immersive experiences are all the rage. From the earlier invention of surround sound to today’s virtual reality technology, people love them.
My first experience with immersive theater was “Phantom – The Vegas Spectacular,” a 90-minute version of “Phantom of the Opera” where audience members felt as if they were in a haunted opera house and the Phantom appeared swinging from a chandelier over our heads. The production ran in the Venetian Resort from 2006 to 2012.
“Harry Potter and the Cursed Child” took immersion to a different level on Broadway in 2018. Now enter the Area Stage Company version of Disney’s “Beauty and the Beast.”
The show is performing to nearly sold-out crowds at Miami’s Adrienne Arsht Center for the Performing Arts in its Carnival Studio Theater, currently transformed by set designer Frank Oliva into an amalgamation of a French medieval castle and a small-town 16th-century pub, where dancing on the tables takes on a whole new meaning.
“Be Our Guest” is taken very seriously and actors you will later see portraying Gaston, Cogsworth, Mrs. Potts, Maurice or any number of other characters greet you at the door with an enthusiastic, “Bonjour, right this way.”
Equally curious and delightful is seeing the five rows of long wooden tables where the audience will be seated upon entering the theater. Where’s the stage? There is none. The audience is the stage – indeed, the whole room is the stage.
(Area Stage Company)
Frank Montoto as Gaston, surrounded by swooning young women from the ensemble.
When the lights dim and the cast comes running in, leaping onto the tables, you know you’re in for something special, but it takes a little getting used to.
After you spend the first 30 minutes moving your head around 360 degrees, you realize the best approach is to focus on what is in your direct line of sight and occasionally glance to the other end, lest risking whiplash.
This is how best to enjoy Maxime Prissert’s nuanced performance as the Beast, as well as catch the many production details linked to Belle’s love for the written word that can only be appreciated in this up-close-and-personal setting.
For starters, Prissert is the star of the show, but not because he manages to emote through some garish, beastly costume and layers of prosthetics.
A hunched gait, horns, a mask over the eyes, long bony claws and a gruff bellowing voice successfully create the frightening half man, half animal needed to be convincing. It doesn’t take long, though, for Prissert’s Beast to become endearing.
(Area Stage Company)
Frank Montoto as the brutish Gaston, mocking Michelle Gordon’s Belle for her interest in books.
If you remember the story, Both Gaston and the Beast try to compel Belle to bend to their will through brutish behavior, but only the Beast realizes he must do it her way – cajoled by his enchanted staff who keep telling him to control his temper and be a gentleman.
After the Beast thinks that over, it’s beautiful to watch Prissert break the word gentleman apart to realize that being a gentle man is the real key to winning Belle’s heart. In that moment, Prissert makes you feel that the one-time prince turned beast wasn’t recalling how to be a gentle man, but learning to be one for the first time.
Not long afterward, he blows the audience away with “If I Can’t Love Her,” in the musical’s most captivating performance of the night. At least one audience member in my line of sight was brought to tears.
Opposite him the night I attended was Michelle Gordon as Belle, the understudy filling in for the COVID-stricken, New York-based Yarden Barr. No matter. The New World School of the Arts alum and FIU student did a suburb job as the charming yet self-assured Belle.
Gordon’s highlights included scenes with Imran Hylton as her father, including her sweet delivery in their duet “No Matter What,” and an exchange with the Beast while she read him a passage from “King Arthur.”
(Area Stage Company)
Michelle Gordon as Belle, the bookish young woman the townspeople call strange.
Belle’s love of literature is magically woven throughout the production. A keen eye close enough to the action will notice that the shreds of paper streaming from the Beast’s claws come from book pages. Confetti falling from plates in “Be Our Guest” are also shredded books. Domed plate covers in the same number reveal Belle’s dinner as food tightly wrapped in pages from books.
Even the audience gets to play along by holding up books distributed during intermission, so we could become a living library in the scene where the Beast reveals his wonderful literary collection as a gift to Belle.
Another fun aspect of this production is watching the actors who are double cast. Frank Montoto seamlessly switches from Gaston to Lumiere, which can get tricky, but reveals more easily to the audience what these two characters have in common.
(Area Stage Company)
John Luis as Cogsworth, straddling the role as half human, half clock – holding the object that poetically represents what he is becoming.
John Luis as Lefou and Cogsworth is lovable and funny. Hylton switches between playing Maurice and Madame de Garderobe in exquisite fashion. Katie Duerr as Mrs. Potts keeps the gang in line with a commonsense delivery that has frequently resulted in her being cast in roles well beyond her years. Luke Surretsky was darling as Chip, and Greta Hicks dueling as the Enchantress and the sashaying feather duster, Babette, is simply “ooh la la.”
Only once did I miss the absence of a proscenium stage, and that was when Belle and the Beast were trying to waltz in “Tale as Old as Time.” The romance gets a little lost in the crowded space that limits their ability to dance and melt our hearts, as that number is intended.
Nonetheless, this “Beauty and the Beast” gets high marks for innovation, which is exactly what young, 21st-century directors like Giancarlo Rodaz need to be doing to attract younger audiences. His fearlessness is worthy of the applause garnered upon introducing himself to the audience after the show.
(Area Stage Company)
Imran Hylton (L) as Maurice, Belle’s father, meeting Frank Montoto’s Lumiere for the first time in the enchanted castle.
It’s rare to see so many smiling faces leave a production. This immersive “Beauty and the Beast” will keep your adrenaline pumping, but better act fast before it’s over. The show is scheduled to close before the end of August but, as of this writing, an extension was being negotiated through the first weekend in September. If only it could go on and on.
Once hooked, like any great action adventure, you’ll want to see it again to catch what you may have missed the first time.
If You Go
Disney’s “Beauty and the Beast”
Carnival Studio Theater
Adrienne Arsht Center
1300 Biscayne Blvd., Miami
Through Aug. 28 with a likely Sept. 4 extension
Friday, 7:30 p.m., Saturday, 2 p.m. and 7:30 p.m., Sunday, 2 p.m.
Tickets: $32 and $63
For more information, call 305.949.6722 or visit ArshtCenter.org