“It's all wow factor!”
Lee Williams, The Oregonian
“A triumph! A beauty of a Beauty…Surprising...Delightful…Rare and Wonderful…you may well want to see it over and over again!”
Marty Hughley, Oregon Arts Watch
“Should be at the top of your holiday to-do list! Creative! Engaging!”
Debbie Tofte, PDX Parent
“Masterpiece..Alluring!.. a complexity that engages adults but just the sort of magic and suspended reality that appeals to little ones. This holiday performance season, make sure La Belle is on your can’t-miss list!
Karel Chan, NW Kids Magazine
“.. a masterpiece …. raised to an infinite degree. A delicious feast for the eyes and ears and nourishing fodder for the soul… a cornucopia of sights and sounds that burrow through the hard shell of adulthood to the child-like wonder of innocence and imagination, too long buried.”
Dennis Sparks – All Things Performing Arts
“Populated with 100 astonishingly detailed automata, puppets and other dazzling non-digital effects... a nonstop eye-popper. After several years in the making, Imago Theatre's tricky, visionary new take on "Beauty and the Beast" arrived this past weekend. And what a landing. It's all wow factor. You'd need a jeweler's loupe to take in all the intricate work, particularly the gear-driven pieces
In a time when spectacular visual stories are forged from lines and lines of code, along comes a wondrous tale carefully carved, tinkered, fitted and welded by consummate Portland creatives.”
Lee Williams, The Oregonian
“Imago’s La Belle is a creature of a rare and wonderful sort, a show you may well want to see over and over again, both to marvel at its graceful mechanics and to soak in its symbolic resonances about the human, animal and spiritual in us all…. with a tone that’s often whimsical but never cutesy, finding that sweet spot of family entertainment that’s really for the adults, even if the kids are so enthralled that they won’t notice.
Perhaps future generations, though, will think of the story and imagine not forests and castles but the grimy engine room of a coal-powered steamship. Their memories will be filled not with Disney’s storybook colors or Cocteau’s poetic cinematic effects but with a more immediate kind of artistic magic: puppets and automatons and actors on a stage….They’ll think of Imago.”
Marty Hughley, Oregon Arts Watch
“My 12-year old son attended this performance with me. We’ve attended performances at Imago before when he was younger. He was skeptical whether he’d truly enjoy a storyline about “Beauty and the Beast.” Quickly, he figured out this was no ordinary retelling, but had a whimsical approach that appealed to him. The whole idea of steampunk and automaton (a moving mechanical device that is an imitation of a human being) quickly captured his interest.”
Debbie Tofte, PDX Parent
“A story synopsis would not do this production justice; in fact, you could walk into the theater knowing nothing about Sam, Rose or Beauty and the Beast and find yourself instantly enchanted. Vadala and Davis expertly command the stage, theater and your attention with every word and movement, drawing you into their world aboard La Belle and then into the fairy tale land of Belle and Beast, and the intricacy of moving set pieces and elegant puppets are a continual feast for the eyes.”
Karel Chan, NW Kids Magazine
“I can see origins of this creation in the works of Eugene O’Neill, “The Hairy Ape” (about a beast-like human working in the boiler room of a ship); “Pinocchio” (the blue fairy); “Cinderella” (a dysfunctional family, with a misfit girl as their slave); “The Merchant of Venice” (the loss of his fortune at sea); and, of course, the original story, the best movie version by far being the 1930’s Cocteau film. There are also influences of the silent film era, especially Chaplin and Keaton, with the exaggerated expressions and stylized movements. And it all works together to perfection!”
Dennis Sparks – All Things Performing Arts
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