Photo Credit: Mark Frohna
In my fairytale, everybody in the land attends a performance of Milwaukee Ballet’s Beauty and the Beast, Michael Pink and company’s finest work to date. The hearts of young and old are lifted, as charged and moved by the performance as the full house at the Marcus Center was at Thursday night’s world premiere. It takes a while for them to sort through all they’ve seen, heard and felt. As they do, they remember that compassion and empathy are essential but acquired traits, dependent on imagination, and that storytelling is vital to their development. The absurdity is that this masterpiece, at least three years in the making, gets a four day run, then sits in storage for perhaps another three years; and given its value to the land, it’s a shame that tickets are required. Won’t some local prince buy out the house?
The heartless prince in Pink’s adaptation physically attacks a haunting group of impoverished children who beg for his help. A fairy godmother – a spiritual force – appears to protect them and to punish the selfish ruler. In one of this spectacular production’s many how-did-they-do that effects, he’s transformed to a hulking creature, still a man but wrapped now in twisty rose vines and isolated from human contact since he isn’t worthy of it. A brutish, violent creature at first, he becomes a figure of pathos as the story unfolds. Those vines will tighten and almost kill him, but it’s the loneliness that enshrouds him via the designs, choreography and performance that overwhelms us.
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Isaac Sharratt was superb as this man-beast and perfectly matched by Nicole Teague-Howell as Belle. Hers is a giant role. She lives in two onstage worlds—the beast’s Cocteau-inspired, stone cold, dark magic-drenched castle with living gargoyles, furniture and statuary, and Belle’s village, a staple of classical ballets that Pink smartly deploys to represent conventionality. Belle doesn’t belong in the latter but who can live in the former? Books are what save her in both worlds. Teague-Howell is nearly always onstage, executing one complicated duet after another, portraying a full range of emotions with unassuming fullness and conviction.
The colorful, through-composed score with its many gorgeous motifs is now my favorite of the Philip Feeney-Michael Pink canon. Conductor Andrews Sill and the orchestra made it soar. David Grill’s lights, Todd Edward Ivins sets and Paul Daigle’s costumes looked impossibly beautiful. The dancing was perfect.
