The Beachwood theater program performed The Hunchback of Notre Dame on Nov. 16-18.
The play follows Quasimodo, a deformed orphan raised by his Uncle, Claude Frollo. The plot takes place when Quasimodo is a young man and meets Esmerelda, the first person who treated him like a human being.
“A lot of people find that they identify with Quasimodo,” drama club director Topher Helm said. “I think Quasimodo is written as a freak monster, an outsider, someone who lives like an outcast. I think that can be very much seen as a metaphor for someone who is an outcast in society, who can’t fit in, something about them that they cannot hide.”
The cast poured their hearts into this performance, and the crowd responded with quiet attention (except for a few young children) and applause after each song.
When the play was over, the audience erupted in overwhelming cheers and applause.
Senior DeShaun Williams, who played Claud Frollo, did an amazing job in his role. Even at moments when his mic wasn’t working, Williams seamlessly projected his voice to compensate for the technical difficulties.
Williams’ deep voice and strong stage presence contributed to his character’s malevolence.
Eli Ward, who played Quasimodo, also did a great job on stage. As the hunchback, Ward was hunched over most of the play, which must have been difficult to maintain while moving across the stage. In one scene, Ward grabbed a bench, plopped it down and patted it to distract Frollo from discovering Captain Phoebus hiding on the other side of the set. It was impressive that he was able to stay in character while doing that.
Senior Rachel Kantarovich, who played Esmerelda, was also excellent. With a fabulous singing voice and dramatic screams, she did exceptionally well on her solos. Esmerelda is first introduced at the Feast of Fools, a festival in the play.
The Feast of Fools was a festival celebrated in medieval France in which a mock bishop or pope was elected and high and low people changed places. The play is set in 15th century Paris, and so it would in fact have been celebrated at that time.
The festival celebrated the biblical principle that “God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise,” and it clearly helps to develop the outsider story depicted in Hunchback.
Esmerelda came onto the stage dancing in a gypsy dress while other performers used tambourines to keep the tempo. Swinging her hips and shaking her arms, Kantarovich performed a lively dance. Later in the play, she showed an impressive vocal range as she belted the song “God Help the Outcast.”
Senior Micheal Karas, who played Captain Phoebus, was fantastic and comical. During a solo, he purposefully made his voice crack. This was likely due to the fact that his character was a young soldier, just returned from the front line, who fell in love with Esmerelda.
His crackly voice was hilarious and made the audience laugh uproariously. Every time Karas got on set, the scene became more joyous.
The set was very creative, including stairs on wheels to a background to make it look like a different time of day. The set was made to look like the inside of Notre Dame cathedral during medieval times.
Though there were some technical glitches during the Saturday night performance, it was fantastic overall.
The production used pre-recorded audio for the chorus, and it was sometimes hard to tell if cast members were singing or if it was the recording playing.
There were also some glitches when people came onto the stage and started to perform, but their mics weren’t on.
The play would have been even more enjoyable if the music were played by a live band or orchestra, rather than being pre-recorded. This might help make the performance feel more lively and engaging. It would also include more students in the production who would not otherwise participate in the show.
Overall, the play rewarded the audience with an impressive performance. You could tell how much time and effort was put in just by watching the students perform.
Taylor Mortensen • Dec 12, 2024 at 2:35 PM
Hi! Taylor Mortensen, Director of Hunchback of Notre Dame, here. Just want to respond to the comments around the pre-recorded music.
We’d love to have a live pit one day. As a new program, we have not been able to garner enough support yet to either pay professional musicians or engage enough student musicians to take up the extra work of learning highly complicated orchestrations.
Community and student support of our drama program is critical for its success. We hope the program will continue to grow where we can add things like live music and professional stage management to ensure “technical glitches” don’t happen. Theater is not an easy task to put on and we continue to add and build on every show we produce.