BEAUTY AND THE BEAST: MY LIFE — UNIQUELY REWARDING

Talk about innovation. Talk about risk. Talk about reward. Talk about writer and director Niall McNeil’s Beauty and the Beast: My Life.

Be patient with me. I want to get into the thematic content of this piece — because I find it so compelling — before I try to give you a sense of how lyrical, spacious, and charming it is.

In this unique project, McNeil uses the template of Disney’s 1991 animated movie version of the story to explore his own experience, which includes living with Down syndrome. The way I interpret this, the cursed Beast and the purehearted Prince who lives inside him are both avatars for McNeil. In the Beast, there’s an aspect of being socially demonized: “You deserve to be a beast all the time.” There’s also a struggle for self-control, the combination of self-mastery and openheartedness that might be called maturity or adulthood. In the intersection between love, romance, sex, and Down syndrome — as the Beast encounters Belle — this exploration becomes rich. In the spirit of the freewheeling script, I’ll share quotes from different parts of the show: “The Beast is scared because he’s not ready to face the world… He’s not a gentleman or a flirt… He’s trying to be a man. He’s a child… How was that, being a child for that number of years?” All of these lines are spoken by McNeill or his representatives. McNeil appears onstage as the director/ringmaster as well as the Prince: “I am determined to be a man. Maybe I can. Maybe I won’t.”

There’s existential substance, the awareness of constructing one’s own narrative in the theatre and in life: “I made a movie. I’m in a movie. I don’t know what’s inside.”

Maybe you’re beginning to get a sense of the poetry, which finds full fruition in the songs: Veda Hille’s tender, contemplative music and McNeil’s associative lyrics. In one of the songs, McNeil asks, “What is a beast?” and answers: “Eyebrows of a gorilla/ Beard and head as a buffalo/ Tail of a wolf/ Eyes of a human.”

Up top, I mentioned the spaciousness that’s created by this project’s combination of looseness, joy, and collaboration. All of these treasures are delivered with crystalline artistry.

The text comes to us in many forms: spoken, sung, on surtitles, in sign language. Meaning is danced in Billy Marchenski’s choreography, which is often sensual, sometimes naughtily rude.

Lighting designer Itai Erdal throws immersive washes on the gossamer curtains of Paula Vitanen Aldazosa’s set: gigantic projections of brightly coloured abstract paintings that McNeil has created. In the story, characters offer McNeil’s painted canvases as methods of communication. His paintings even show up in the gorgeous fabric of the dress that costumer Christine Reimer gives to Belle.

The cast is precise, generous, playful, funny. And everybody can move: Marchenski as the Beast, Sophia Mai Wolfe as Belle, Kate Franklin (Lumiere), and Peter Anderson (Mrs. Potts). Everybody plays other characters as well.

All theatre is collaborative, but this collaboration is particularly exciting: so many high-powered artists coming together to realize the vision of another high-powered artist who’s sharing an aspect of human experience we seldom see on the stage. Michele Valiquette acted as dramaturge and Debbie Patterson as directorial mentor.

But there’s no doubting that this is McNeil’s vision, his project. When I said hi afterwards, Niall said, “I directed this whole thing, you know.”

I know.

And there’s mastery here. Adulthood. “It is hard to be a writer,” Niall says in the show. “Patience to become one.”

Yes.

I encourage you to see Beauty and the Beast: My Life. You will be lucky to encounter this artist.

BEAUTY AND THE BEAST: MY LIFE Written and directed by Niall McNeil. Niall McNeil Productions presented by The Cultch. Running in The Cultch’s Historic Theatre until April 6. (tickets and information)

PHOTO CREDIT: Niall McNeil’s Prince orchestrates an encounter between Billy Marchenski’s Beast and Belle (Sophia Mai Wolfe). (Photo by Tim Matheson)