Beauty And The Beast A Musical Theater - Review

Hey guys! University life is actually never boring if you know what you can join. I have been keeping an eye on notices posted anywhere so that I won't miss any event that I might be interested in and I found this! Two months ago I saw the notice about recruiting actor and actress for the musical theatre with the title 'Beauty and the Beast'. I was really excited but I was not really good in acting. 90's Disney has always been part of my favourite childhood memories and this event caught my attention. After two months of preparation, finally this musical theatre is staged and I was willing to attend although no merit would be given (ah stop mentioning about merits).

I believe that many of us know about this magical story about a prince who was cursed to live as an ugly beast until the day he met his true love who loved him back.  This musical performance was presented by B2 Production which consists of the third year students of Bachelor of Art (English Literature) taking the course Play Production and Performance Technique taught by Dr. Arbaayah Ali Termizi. According to the information I obtained from the exhibition outside the theater, it was the first animated movie staged in UPM, the biggest production with 75 crews, and the most expensive play production to be staged in the history of UPM's theatre.

RM 5 for students of UPM!!!

As I have watched the Disney animation before, I went to this event with quite high expectation (my bad) and ended up with slightly disappointment. Firstly, the sound system was really bad that we have to struggle to hear the voice of the actors and actress (except those with louder voice). I think it was the problem of the microphone as the background music was very clear. The most important thing in a musical performance is the sound that we hear as it would be difficult for the audiences to understand the whole story without listening to the dialogues. We could understand the performance this time as we already know the story well. Next, the time taken during the changing of setting could have been faster. The long pause (in my opinion it was long) was awkward. Overall, I was only satisfied about the settings, the costumes and the performers (refraining myself from giving critics anymore).

Despite the bad reviews above, I LOVE the musical theatre! The actors and actresses were PERFECT to me! Their voices, their facial expression, their every movement and emotion brought the supposed-to-be-virtual characters into life! I don't know which word should be used to describe their performance: mesmerizing, breath-taking, fascinating, awesome etc. When the character Gaston appeared, I was like 'wow this is really Gaston', unbelievable. All the characters which were once only living in story became alive on the stage that Wednesday night. I thought I really saw the real Belle, Beast, Lumiere, Cogsworth and many more in front of us. Among them, the character I love the most is Lumiere, the candles. Those who have watched this performance know why, haha. He was just so Lumiere! His acting made him to stand out among other characters on the stage. Yes all of them are PERFECT, I say it and I mean it. You guys should have been there to watch it with your own eyes. This was the first live musical performance that I have ever watched and  I am looking forward to any other similar performance in university. Hopefully next year there will be other play being staged! I truly admire the crews who had been working so hard for the past two months just to make the performance possible.

I have been wanting to watch musical theatres as there is something in it which is irreplaceable by movies. My bigger dream about musical theatre is to watch The Lion King in New York City (it came to Singapore once, but no money no chance no talk). One day, I will be there!