Theatre review: East Van Panto: Beauty and the Beast ups an already pretty-much-perfect game
Powerhouse singing and pastel-hued eye candy are the added ikura on a wonderfully jam-packed maki
Sushi and maki come to life amid the visual eye candy of East Van Panto: Beauty and the Beast. Photo by Emily Cooper
Theatre Replacement and The Cultch present East Van Panto; Beauty and the Beast at the York Theatre and online to January 7
THEATRE REPLACEMENT’S LATEST installment of the East Van Panto is hilariously, outrageously locked to Clark and Venables—finding next-level visual and thematic inspiration from a favourite Japanese-food emporium and a famously bull-averse mattress outlet.
Dancing miso soup and no-flip mattresses as a metaphor for life? Count yourself lucky that only in East Van could such creative insanity take place.
It’s clear from this spin on Beauty and the Beast that after 11 whacked-out years, the Panto team not only knows every minute corner of the neighbourhood, but how to put on a riotously entertaining show. Past triumphs have made the Panto a well-deserved local holiday tradition, but this Anita Rochon-directed rendition ups an already pretty-much-perfect game. The fact that gifted leads Steffanie Davis as Belle and Jason Sakaki as the Beast belt out some unexpectedly soaring musical numbers is just the added ikura on a wonderfully jam-packed maki.
Writers Christine Quintana and Jiv Parasram, penning their first Panto, bring just the right portions of huge heart and shameless absurdity to the story. Off the top, we meet Sakaki’s West Vancouver snob, terrified to be slumming it in East Van. As June Mirochnick hilariously scoffs from the drumkit throughout the show: “That guy SUCKS.”
Jason Sakaki slums it at Venables and Clark. Photo by Emily Cooper
Soon a pink-haired fairy (a pitch-perfect Maiko Yamamoto) puts a curse on his privileged ass—accidentally turning all of Fujiya’s clerks and customers into Japanese food items in the process.
Also not quite fitting into the neighbourhood, Belle totes around an algebra textbook and dreams of getting into finance. In a running joke, she literally puts people to sleep talking about it—especially her artist father (Munish Sharma).
We’re not going to reveal the Beast’s form here—let’s leave that to other fun-spoilers. Just know that as the Fujiya 50-percent-off stickers appear and time starts running out, the Beast has to learn to change his ways. If you’re familiar with the writers’ work (Quintana just wrapped up her clever Cyrano twist Someone Like You at the Arts Club), you are aware this team is going to upend the more dated gender dynamics of the fairy tale. Perfecting the double take, Davis’s semi-kidnapped Belle basically asks, “Exactly how is getting the Beast back to human form my responsibility?”
Stinking up the entire show is a pack of unruly East Van skunks, led hilariously by Panto veteran Mark Chavez’s gothy-fascist Skunk King, sporting a long leather jacket, dark Trent Reznor locks, and clawed gloves. He makes the most of some of the night’s best one-liners. And just wait till you see him wield his secret weapon against the humans who refuse to stop startling his “skunklings”, leaving audience members of all ages howling.
This show really moves, to the point where it’s hard to believe that it clocks in at an hour and 50 minutes. Hille and Mirochnick throw down brilliant mashup medleys that span radio hits and ‘80s nostalgia; among the highlights is a rafter-rattling rendition of Sam Smith’s “Unholy”.
A truly incredible singer, Davis (just off a smashing run as the lead in Someone Like You) simply kills it, meeting the demands of music pulled from heavyhitters like Adele.
Choreographer Amanda Testini brings extra energy to the dance numbers this year, the sushi crew dropping some fun break moves while riffing on Run-DMC’s “It’s Tricky” (which, somehow, Hille masterfully morphs into the Beach Boys’ “Kokoro”).
Steffanie Davis puts a killer singing voice to work. Photo by Emily Cooper
Alaia Hamer pulls out all the creative stops on the costumes, from the shimmery pink tail of the ebi nigiri to the bubbly roe that serve as Munish Sharma’s maki hat. Cindy Mochizuki’s illustrations and Lauchlin Johnston’s sets conjure a multilayered, pastel-hazed world of magical lucky cats and cherry blossoms. With their Le voyage de la lune quality, night scenes with glowing full moons have more production eye candy than a Panto has any right to have. Still, the artistic team has maintained the necessary handmade, pop-up-book feel to the entire visual world.
The lessons to take home are plentiful. Among them: don’t refuse to flip, creativity can solve anything, it’s actually possible to get into UBC, Fujiya has the cheapest California rolls in town, West Van sucks, and always “look behi-i-i-nd you” for skunklings. Oh, and if you really think about it, Clark and Venables might be the most oddly enchanted intersection in Vancouver.
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