Niall McNeil immerses audiences in his world of whimsical paintings in Beauty and the Beast: My Life
Presented by The Cultch, this vivid play taps into Disney and Cocteau with an enchanting combination of theatre, dance, and visual art
(From left) Billy Marchenski, Niall McNeil, and Sophia Mai Wolfe in Beauty and the Beast: My Life. Photo by Tim Matheson
The Cultch presents Beauty and the Beast: My Life at the Historic Theatre from March 28 to April 6
IN THE BACKYARD of theatre artist Niall McNeil’s East Vancouver home, there is a small art studio where he spends his spare time sketching, painting, and collaging.
Much of McNeil’s inspiration as of late has come from Walt Disney Pictures’ 1991 animated film Beauty and the Beast, which in turn drew inspiration from French avant-garde artist Jean Cocteau’s 1946 romantic fantasy La Belle et la bête. (Both were based on the same 18th-century French fairy tale.) Many of the surrealist touches in Cocteau’s film found their way into Disney’s version—for instance, an enchanted candelabra held up by human arms sprouting from the wall became the lovingly rebellious Lumière.
McNeil spent hours drawing characters, places, and objects from the Beauty and the Beast tale in pencil before giving them vibrancy with multicoloured paint. He is now using his artwork as the basis for his new production Beauty and the Beast: My Life, which shares McNeil’s experiences as an artist with Down syndrome within the whimsical worlds of Disney and Cocteau.
Speaking to Stir in a Zoom call with his creative collaborator Billy Marchenski before The Cultch presents the show’s premiere, McNeil shares that he has been painting since he was young—so it only makes sense for him to combine that medium with his theatre practice.
“I’ve been on-stage since I was a little guy, a little baby,” McNeil says. “My mom and my dad brought me in this world to be an artist.”
McNeil and Marchenski will both be performing in Beauty and the Beast: My Life, alongside collaborators Sophia Mai Wolfe, Kate Franklin, and Peter Anderson. Marchenski is behind the choreography for the production, which will also mark McNeil’s directorial debut here in Vancouver.
Having grown up just outside of Armstrong, B.C., McNeil spent most of his childhood summers at Caravan Farm Theatre’s legendary outdoor stage. It was there that he first tried his hand at directing children’s versions of plays that were being performed by adults at the Caravan, like Cowboy King and Cyrano de Bergerac. He’s since gone on to co-write the Jessie Richardson Theatre Award–winning productions Peter Panties and King Arthur’s Night with Marcus Youssef.
When asked whether he’d like to direct more in the future now that he’s in Vancouver, an immediate “I want to” is McNeil’s response. “It’s hard,” the artist adds. “But I have experience letting the actors speak first. [If] they are just stuck on something, they can dig in and let me know whether it needs to be worked on.”
A number of McNeil’s sketches will be hung in the lobby of The Cultch’s Historic Theatre for audience members to see up close before and after the show. While many of them are seen in the production, some were used purely for inspiration. Prints of the artworks will also be for sale—and there are plenty to go around.
“I filled up the whole book of sketches,” McNeil says. “I would say, like, over 102.”
Many of those initial sketches of characters, places, and objects that reference Disney’s Beauty and the Beast wound up becoming inspiration for the show’s stylistic elements—including costume designs by Christine Reimer, and the castle set design by Paula Viitanen. But it was Cocteau’s film that influenced many of Marchenski’s choreographic choices. The play is steeped heavily in movement, with lots of improvisation, mime-like sequences, and tableaux vivants throughout.
Though McNeil doesn’t have formal dance training, he has delved head-on into following his body’s intuition and choreographing moves; “Mostly, I just make ’em up,” the artist shares candidly. Marchenski, who has a contemporary-dance background, expands on that experimentation.
“I love Niall’s sense of flow in this process,” Marchenski says. “As a director, he really just gets on his feet. He’s very hands-on, I would say…. And that means that all kinds of spontaneous things can happen. So that’s really fun.”
For McNeil, the play is a welcome chance to share a decade’s worth of life experiences and artistic creations with audiences. “I’m gonna go forward, work hard on this piece, and we’re gonna show it to the world,” he concludes. 
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