(In a quick departure from my Disney Movie Recaps, I’d thought I’d bring you a quick theater review from the US premier of Disney’s The Hunchback of Notre Dame currently playing at the La Jolla Playhouse, La Jolla CA. Be advised, thar be spoilers ahead)
Picture it, California, 2000. A young man at the dawn of the Internet Is Useful age learns that a production of Disney’s The Hunchback of Notre Dame has made it to the stage. And if there were ever a Disney film to be put on Broadway, it was definitely Hunchback. Lo, and behold, it’s a success on the stage, only problem, it’s playing in Berlin. In this dark time of internet, YouTube and Wikipedia had yet to be born. We weren’t Googling yet, we were using Yahoo. And back then, that young man was lucky enough to find a single Geocities site that had the vaguest information about this production of Der Glöckner von Notre Dame. That young man was me, and I became obsessed with this show. I grasped at the tiniest of straws of information about the show. New songs were written by the original team of Stephen Swartz and Alan Menken. A new, darker book had been written by James Lapine. The tone of the show was much more mature and echoed the Victor Hugo novel much closer. Frollo was an archdeacon, Quasimodo was deaf, and Esmeralda died. My best pal Ricky gifted me an imported CD of the Original Cast Recording one Christmas, and it was everything I wanted it to be (except in German). The Berlin production ran from 1999 to 2002 and rumors began circulating that a US premier would not be far behind. After years of waiting I gave up hope. I’d occasionally listen to German soundtrack and dream about what might have been.
You can imagine my excitement when I heard that an English production was starting workshops, with a new book written by Peter Parnell, and would have its premiere in the San Diego area! My personal Ticket Master Ricky snatched up tickets as soon as he could get his grubby paws on them and I was going to finally see The Hunchback of Notre Dame on stage.
And, boy was I not disappointed.
Just like the Berlin production, the show retains the darker tone of the novel and ditches many of the light touches that Disney added when they animated the movie. The 3 sidekick gargoyles were removed all together. In the Berlin the gargoyles were renamed and given a more serious role in the show and were, most importantly, firmly established as figments of Quasimodo’s imagination. Here, the role of the gargoyles was given to all stone figures in the cathedral’s bell tower, and the bells themselves, and played by the ensemble cast. I though this worked out wonderfully with the only hiccup being the replacement for the A Guy Like You number with a new song, the Act 2 opener, Flight Into Egypt which felt too silly for the show that had been presented to the audience up to that point.
The ensemble was just fantastic with all of them portraying multiple roles and filling in with narration, sometimes too much narration. When show opens with the stirring Bells of Norte Dame, instead of Clopin taking the lead, the cast takes turns with the exposition heavy song. I would have preferred Clopin keeping the lead role as narrator but for the most part I wasn’t bothered with this. Where it fell apart for me was when the cast started to narrate the action that was unfolding on stage. The show was told in a gorgeous setting, but very minimal sets and props. The narration filled in gaps such as “he walked into the pub” or “he slid down the parapets” and at that point it felt childish and theme parky. If you’ve ever seen Beauty and the Beast Live On Stage at Disney’s Hollywood Studio in Orlando, you know that when Belle reaches the Beast’s castle an omnipresent voice explains it as “a series of events that leads Belle to the castle.” This narration felt just like that, awkward and forced.
Rounding out the ensemble was a full choir doing the backing vocals, and man, did this sound spectacular. The sound was so full and rich, haunting and ethereal. They remain on stage the whole time and add to the spiritual setting of the show.
The main cast is outstanding as well. Ciara Renee is pitch perfect as Esmeralda. Michael Arden brings the house down with every song as Quasimodo. He is still deaf in this production and some of the words are still sung with a slight slur. In Berlin, Quasi’s songs are sung with clarity and I think it better drives home that the songs are his inner monologue and it makes it a tad more powerful. And I really mean just a tad. I have nothing but praise Arden’s powerful voice. His 11th hour number, Made of Stone, gave me chills and pretty much deserved a mid-show standing ovation. Frollo, played by Patrick Page, is given a back story about being orphaned with his brother Jahan and brought up in the cathedral. Jahan runs away with a gypsy and gives birth to Quasimodo before dying, making Frollo his uncle. It humanized the normally foul villain and the beginning of the story became just as much his tragedy as it was Quasimodo’s. Not until his big number Hellfire does he go full villain, and his booming voice is everything you want it to be in that song. Andrew Samonsky’s Phoebus was the dimmest star in this constellation, but it’s not saying that he’s bad at all. He had the right swagger for the character, made more morally ambiguous here than dashing hero as in the movie, and his voice were just fine. He just lacked that presence the other three leads had.
After years of anticipation I’m so glad to have finally seen this show live. The music and scenery were all goose bump inducing. Performed in a very small space, it was very intimate despite its grand score and themes. Personally I could have used a slightly bigger stage to accommodate a bigger dance number for Topsy Turvy. The story changes were all for the better, and what I’d give to see the finale Bells of Notre Dame live again. With a few tweaks, this show will be a huge hit when it gets the spot on the Great White Way it has deserved for so long.
Now if only I could go back to tell 2000 self to be patient and not waste so much time looking for bad .jpeg images of the show. Oh, and tell him that cargo shorts are a mistake.
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