Beauty and the Beast (2010 Tour)

★★★☆☆

San Diego, 2012

Today we drove down into San Diego to see the new touring version of Disney’s Beauty and the Beast stage musical. The simpler staging and costumes work (though the castle set from the 1995 Los Angeles production really added a lot to the mood), but the big numbers like “Be Our Guest” do suffer from the smaller cast. And while I don’t really miss the two songs they cut (“No Matter What” and “Maison Des Lunes” were the weakest of the score), I did miss the battle between the townspeople and the enchanted objects…and the new song (OK, not that new, but it wasn’t in the original production) they added, about how happy Belle is to have given up her dreams, is actually creepy. Seriously, did no one think that one through?