In the Eaves of the Cathedral, Something New Awaits

The Hunchback of Notre Dame at the Paper Mill Playhouse

Michael Arden (center) as Quasimodo in The Hunchback of Notre Dame.

    One thing can be said for The Hunchback of Notre Dame, the new musical running at the Paper Mill Playhouse through April 5 -- it's not usual.

    Technically speaking, it's based on the original 1831 Victor Hugo novel, the tale of a deformed man named Quasimodo kept captive in the titular cathedral's bell-tower, from which it draws its darker themes, but most of its songs are drawn directly from the 1996 Disney animated film.  But this isn't Disney fare.  Certainly, director Scott Schwartz's brilliant stagecraft could be tangentially connected to the work Julie Taymor did on 1998's Lion King stage musical, but that would perhaps be simplistic given that Hunchback contains no puppetry, few variations in scenic design, and very little color.  It is a beautiful production, set in a magnificent approximation of the Paris cathedral of the title --  designed by Alexander Dodge and lit by Howell Binkley -- but it is as existentially terrifying as it is gorgeous, and one can hardly imagine children begging to attend this production, or buying extravagantly priced Halloween costumes based on it.  That is to say -- it's not a grab at franchise glory, and that alone is worth some admiration for the increasingly cynical Disney theater machine.

    Nor is it usual for its creative team.  The unstoppably prolific Alan Menken and the egregiously-Tonyless Stephen Schwartz, who wrote the score to the original film (as well as another unusually dark Disney Renaissance film, Pocahontas) and add some new numbers here, seem at first to be in their element.  There are clear contributions from Schwartz, lyricist (heavy religious imagery, frequent narration, soaring power ballads) and Menken, composer (clear narrative arc, period-theme music, darkly ambiguous ending).  But these are deeper waters than either has tested before, and neither comes out entirely clean.  As in many Menken scores, there are several truly memorable melodies (none of the newly written ones qualify) and a significant, twinklingly forgettable portion that exist mainly to move the plot along.  Here the latter seems to overwhelm the former.  And as in some of the worse Schwartz musicals (Godspell comes to mind), the religious overtones are frequently so heavy-handed that they impede further understanding of the characters' motivations.  A number of the melodies even from the movie are surprisingly underdeveloped for writers of Menken and Schwartz's talent.  "Rest and Recreation," an ode to fun by a soldier on furlough, is one of these, a number with incredible promise, especially in the chorus, that trails off into nothing almost too quickly.  Many of the songs are hurt, too, by the lackluster orchestrations (by Michael Starobin, who works better with rock scores, as in Next to Normal), which can fail to match the potential the singers  bring to the songs.  

The old classics, however, are all here -- "Out There," Quasimodo's "Part of Your World" moment, "Hellfire," essentially a reinterpretation of "Mea Culpa" from Sweeney Todd, and, most notably, "The Bells of Notre Dame," the beautiful opening number repeated as a musical theme throughout the show.  "Bells" achieves liftoff, as does the show, thanks to the contributions of the Continuo Arts Symphonic Chorus, who sit at the back of the stage during the entirety of the show and sing madrigal-choir support for nearly every song, lending to the score a gravitas and significance that is one of the many brilliant touches lent to the show by Scott Schwartz.

    It's Mr. Schwartz (the lyricist's son), who, as the ingenious director, brings his best work to the production.  A version of Hunchback played in Berlin in the early 2000s, to the same critical acclaim this production received at La Jolla Playhouse last year.  But Schwartz has made the show his own, adding a more intelligent approach to the gargoyles who speak to Quasimodo, jettisoning songs that don't match the dark themes of the show ("A Guy Like You" from the film, which was sung by a mid-"Seinfeld" Jason Alexander, is the primary example), and generally stripping the show down to its most brilliant stagecraft.  Quasimodo (Michael Arden -- more on him in a moment) comes on-stage appearing normal, then straps on a hump and smears his face with makeup in view of the audience, so that his transformation becomes a part of the play.  (Self-referential "troupe of players" motifs are a common touch of the elder Schwartz -- see Pippin.)  Transformations are central to the show, and the younger Schwartz brings them to the fore, making them transparent and letting the audience see the fascinating machinations of the unknown.

    Though the book, by Peter Parnell, is ludicrous, the talented cast does their best with the better parts of the mostly moving and clearly intelligently conceived score.  Mr. Arden, as Quasimodo, deploys one of the most perfect voices I've ever heard on a stage during the hunchback's deeply felt songs, even if the speaking voice he uses for his character is uncomfortably redolent of Ben Stiller's Simple Jack from Tropic Thunder.  ("Never go full retard," advised Robert Downey Jr. in that film, and, absent the insulting language, Mr. Arden might do well to take heed.)  Still, though, his performance is captivating, a perfect match for the play's villain, Quasimodo's uncle and caretaker, Archdeacon Frollo of Notre Dame, astonishingly portrayed by Patrick Page.  Mr. Page has perfected the art of the Disney villain (having played Scar for several years on Broadway in The Lion King), and this performance is no exception.  Like Mr. Arden, he is a beautiful and unique singer, and he is capable enough as an actor to take on the deep, Catholic guilt-tinged anger the part requires.  They make a perfect team.

    Less interesting is the central love story, between Phoebus (Andrew Samonksy), the captain of the Notre Dame guard, and Esmerelda (Ciara Renee), a Gypsy dancer for whom Phoebus, Quasimodo, and Frollo fall.  The characters are cookie-cutter -- Phoebus is a burly jock who magically becomes sensitive upon falling in love without ever becoming interesting, and Esmerelda is an eternally good, sexy, submissive impossibility who exists merely to serve the stories of the male characters.  A sample line from her song, "God Help the Outcasts," the appeal of which I've never understood, in which she prays in Notre Dame: "I ask for nothing / I can get by / But I know so many / Less lucky than I."  Oh, she's selfless, too?  Swoon.  When Mr. Parnell's simplistic, hamfisted writing gets to work on this phony love quadrangle, a certain type of audience member might smile comfortably and think, "Ah.  A Disney musical after all."

    But there is something odd about Scott Schwartz's consistently intelligent direction, the transcendent passages of Menken and Schwartz's score, and that eternally present, beautifully echoing choir that brings to mind the feeling an agnostic might attain upon entering a church -- for like religion, Hunchback is somewhat confusing, a little heavy and not entirely necessary.  But for even the unbaptized, when all the right elements come together -- when the organ echoes, the choir sings and the light comes just right through the stained-glass windows, the agnostic can understand why people are so fervent about this whole setup.  And while he may not be, he can certainly sit back and enjoy the more beautiful parts of the ride.