‘Beauty and the Beast’ a treat for entire family

Marilyn LaRocque

Friday, Nov. 15, 2002 | 9:26 a.m.

What: "Beauty and the Beast."

When: 8 p.m. Friday and Saturday; 2 p.m. Saturday and Sunday; 7:30 p.m. Sunday.

Where: Alladin Theatre for the Performing Arts

Tickets: $25 to $80

Information: (702) 785-5000.

Rating: *** 1/2

One of the largest opening-night theater crowds at recent Las Vegas musicals cheered and applauded "Beauty and the Beast" at the Aladdin Theatre for the Performing Arts on Wednesday night.

Many young children were in the audience of about 3,000, and the onstage pyrotechnics, dancing plates, imaginative costumes and zany antics of many of the characters produced a lively evening of fun family fare.

The show runs through Sunday.

Imaginative backdrops, gigantic tattered drapes and columns and portable vignette sets on wheeled platforms produced an effective fairy-tale setting. Director Robert Jess Roth goes for broke in his take on the Broadway Tony Award-winning version of the Disney animated blockbuster.

Broad slapstick, pratfalls and over-the-top acting by many of the characters add humor and energy to the familiar tale of the town beauty and the prince turned into a beast because of his arrogant treatment of an enchantress in the guise of a hag.

The dialogue continues the broad humor. Lumiere, a servant, now candelabra, says to Babette, the parlor maid, "You cut me to the wick." Gaston, the town braggart and bully pursuing Belle for his wife, asks her, "How can you read this book? There are no pictures."

Marc G. Dalio as Gaston stole the show. For starters, he has a great voice. His Elvis-style pompadour, bodybuilder muscles, flexing poses and push-ups, his swagger and tomfoolery with Lefou ("Le" is "the" and "fou" is "crazy" in French), his buffoonish sidekick (expertly played by Aldrin Gonzalez) were the funniest and fastest-moving parts of the show.

Their sense of comic timing was right on. At one point, Gaston thinks he is going to kiss Belle, but she has slipped away and Gaston is literally face-to-face with Lefou. In addition to singing well, Gonzalez takes as good a pratfall as Charlie Chaplin and tumbles like a circus acrobat.

The tavern scene built around the song "Gaston" is a rollicking, precision tankard-clanking chorus line that's a showstopper. "Be Our Guest," with dancing silverware and plates against an enormous backdrop of plates, with fireworks shooting out of champagne bottles, is a winner. The talented song-and-dance ensemble performs another great number, "Human Again."

Danyelle Bossardet is a charming, pleasant Belle, but she's a better actor than singer. Her voice becomes shrill and nasal as she sings higher notes. But she's pretty, and her ball gown is gorgeous. With Gaston, Lefou, and others, she opens the show with a bright and spirited rendition of "Belle," the song that describes her as a book-reading oddity among the townfolk.

As the Beast/Prince, Grant Norman is tall and imposing. His electronically enhanced roars and rantings are beastly, and his transition to a caring being is believable. He has a warm and appealing voice and gave a strong performance of his two solos, "If I Can't Love Her" and "How Long Must This Go On?"

The Beast's household staff has been turned into a group of semi-inanimate objects. Mrs. Potts, the teapot, was played by Anne Kanengeiser. She, of course, sings the title song.

She's not Angela Lansbury, but her voice is cheerful and she gives a warm, motherly interpretation to her role. Her son, Chip, the teacup, is an inspired bit of stage trickery. (The role alternates between Joey Caravaglio and Brandon Kane.) Only his head appears -- above a table top (that's easy to figure out) but also on a tea tray carried by Mrs. Potts. That's a puzzle.

Bob Lorey is an excellent Lumiere, French and debonaire. Flirtatious Babette, Tracy Generalovich, has a feather duster flouce at the bottom of her costume and at her wrists. Cogsworth, the butler, Andrew Boyer, has been turned into a grandfather clock. He and Lorey are marvelous comic foils for each other. When Kanangeiser joins them, they're a super comic trio.

Keith Fortner as the Doormat is another flexible tumbler, somersaulting and rolling about the stage. Madame de la Grande Bouche (lady with the big mouth) is an opera singer turned into a chest of drawers. Monica M. Wemitt gives the old gal a very funny twist, going from high camp to high C with ease. When the castle staff takes on the villagers led by Gaston, determined to kill the Beast, Wemitt grabs a spear and dons a Valkyre helmet.

The Three Silly Girls (Jacqui Graziano, Melissa Lone, and Michele Tibbits) who swoon over Gaston have a wacky charm, groupie mentallity and unbelievable body language and control as they follow him around in lockstep. Belle's father, Maurice, played by Charles E. Gerber, is a likeable eccentric and sings well.

"Beauty and the Beast" lasts nearly three hours. It's long, but entertaining.