Sometimes it takes just one scene — a song, a dance, a kiss, a speech — to redeem a soggy musical. Exhibit A: Chanhassen Dinner Theatre's production of "Beauty and the Beast," which opened Friday night.
Forty minutes into this Disney-inflected treacle, salvation arrived as the denizens of the Beast's castle — those hexed human/houseware mutants — took up the bouncy rhythms of "Be Our Guest," the catchiest song in Alan Menken's score.
Suddenly, the stage was alive with silverware, cups, sugar bowls, creamers, a Champagne bottle and glass, salt and peppers complete with shaker tops, a throw pillow — all dancing and singing in a bizarre array that got better and better.
Finally! This fabulous production number had uncorked the fizz in director Michael Brindisi's fairy tale confection. The show was alive.
"Be Our Guest" was so good because it illustrates all that's right with this staging.
It begins with Rich Hamson's impossibly imaginative costuming — all the creatures listed above plus gargoyles, rustic townfolk and other oddballs in a vision of actors as scenery, stationary or moving. Hamson and his staff got saucers to twirl, candelabra to light, every manner of invention to work for them.
Secondly, Tamara Kangas Erickson has choreographed the lovely castle misfits with lyrical elegance and superb line. They sing with terrific voices to the brisk tempos of Andrew Cooke's cracking orchestra. Lastly, Sue Berger's lights pick up every nuance in Nayna Ramey's set design and create color as mood.
Of course, Brindisi brought all this together in his concept for the show, nodding toward the dark contours of Jean Cocteau's 1946 film. Hence, gargoyles adhere to pillars and spring to life throughout the action.
"Beauty and the Beast" relies on a lot of shtick, which, if you're not digging it, can get tiresome. The huffing egotist Gaston (Aleks Knezevich in a cartoon mashup of Nic Cage and Andy Kaufman) and the dithering servants Lumiere (Mark King) and Cogsworth (Scott Blackburn) keep the show at least above water. Emily Rose Skinner wears the wardrobe of Madame de la Grand Bouche with a nice flair, and no actor in the history of Western theater has ever gotten more from his 10 minutes on stage than David Anthony Brinkley as Monsieur D'Arque. With Uncle Fester makeup by Susan Magnuson, costume by Hamson and lurching body by Brinkley, this keeper of the insane asylum clearly has been taking his work home with him.
But amid all the clanging bells, there is a catalyzing love story between Belle and the Beast. Here, Brindisi did well to match Ruthanne Heyward and Robert O. Berdahl. Berdahl has great physical tools, moving with a feral instinct, tall and broad-shouldered enough to wear a frock coat impressively. His voice has a deep bottom, but enough sensitivity that he almost draws a tear with his first-act closer, "If I Can't Love Her."
Heyward — dressed in peasant blue — is plucked from a textbook to play Belle. She sings the role and plays the character with enough grace that we care deeply for her.
Together, Heyward and Berdahl find the tentative apprehension in their characters and then allow the transformative power of each other's presence to blossom in a moving conclusion.
It is this quiet love story that so satisfyingly concludes the show, even though it was a raucous production number that got things started.
graydon.royce@startribune.com • 612-673-7299 • Twitter: @graydonroyce
