Ah, the Beast.
No, not the one that is a certain world leader’s preferred mode of ground transportation.
This Beast is one of a flesh-and-blood variety with plenty of gnarled hair and messy emotions to prove it. He is the once-and-future prince trapped in an outsize, lurching form, raging around a castle chock full of staffers trapped in inanimate objects like teapots and timepieces.
And he is half of the oddball duo that is Beauty and the Beast, Disney’s animated-film-turned-Broadway musical that is heading soon toward North Charleston Performing Arts Center. Part of the Best of Broadway series, the production is set for eight shows there from Sept.16 through Sept. 21.
Ahead of the run, Charleston City Paper talked to the Beast himself, Fergie L. Philippe, who shared just how meaningful and multi-layered that making the Beast has been for him.
“Anybody who knows me knows that this is kind of destiny in a lot of ways. I’m a major, major Disney fan,” he said.
Becoming the Beast
For Philippe, going savage was more than just an average gig.
“It’s a dream role,” said the New York City-based actor, who is also a director, playwright and puppeteer, and who has some serious stage and screen notches on his artistic belt. These include Broadway credits, as Hercules Mulligan and James Madison in Hamilton, and Sir Sagramore in Camelot. He was also tapped for two episodes of The Gilded Age, the television series known for its Broadway-friendly casting.
“In the pantheon of musicals that Disney has decided to transfer to the stage, Beauty and the Beast was always the one that … I understand.”
Philippe said he campaigned tirelessly to fill those cloven-shaped shoes. And at 6 feet 3 inches tall, the actor can certainly represent, but it took persistent appeals for an audition for the casting folks to demonstrate the nuances he could bring to the character that would resonate with audiences.
Raised in Miami, he was a repeat visitor at Disney World growing up. Since then, the performer has been artistically inspired by the kind of stories Disney writes.
He first encountered the onstage Beast when he was a musical theater undergrad at Elon University. During his interview with City Paper, he was back in that formative terrain remembering a Best of Broadway’s stop in North Carolina.
Big Beast energy
For Philippe, the Beast looms the largest of all the Disney characters.
“The pathos is so grand. You feel it. We are able to connect to the character of the Beast in such a way because he’s so human,” he said, noting in particular the character’s struggles with communicating his true feelings.
The actor said he has poured all of this into the role, focused on bringing to the beast emotionality, his comedy, his lightheartedness that may not have been emphasized as much previously. And that’s particularly meaningful when it comes to men.
For Philippe, the tortured man inside the monster — doomed as a teenager and thus in a perennial state of arrested development — personifies the male experience in many ways.
And based on the many who flock to him after performances, it seems the Beast is resonating with men today, who are drawn to the character’s plight of being ill-equipped to grapple with his own emotions.
“My number one demographic of people I’m excited to see the show is men,” he said. “Men often come up to me and are like, ‘God, you were so funny, and you were so frustrated, but you were so scared and so confused, and I have felt that my whole life.’ ”
Among those presumed he-men was Dave Bautista, the outsize WWE wrestler-turned-actor known for his portrayal of Drax in Guardians of the Galaxy. When Philippe met him after the performance, he was struck to discover a soft-spoken, warm fan who had seen the show six times clearly felt seen.
It takes two
Even with this complex man-beast in the spotlight, Philippe flags that in this show, it takes two to grow: both his character and his love interest Belle, aka the Beauty, portrayed in the North American tour by New York Ciy-based actor Kyra Belle Johnson.
“What I love about it is that it requires both of them to influence each other into transformation. It’s not somebody [who] needs to kiss somebody in order for somebody to come back to life. Two people find each other, and based on the thing they need or the thing they want, that is how they transform,” Philippe said.
So, yes, audience members will be lavished with Disney-grade grandeur including anthropomorphic candlesticks, talking teacups and fretting French armoires — not to mention beloved tunes like “Be Our Guest” and the title song “Beauty and the Beast,” with its recognizable lyrics “a tale as old as time.”
But with its singular spotlight on the modern-day male plight, in addition to being rich fodder for the entire family, the production is prime terrain for a daddy outing. Either way, Philippe encourages all to visit the stage door after the show to connect with cast members and share their impressions — and meet the man behind the Beast.
IF YOU WANT TO GO: Eight performances run from Sept. 16 through Sept. 21 at North Charleston Performing Arts Center, 5001 Coliseum Dr., North Charleston. More: northcharlestoncoliseumpac.com
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