Review "La Bete": David Hyde Pierce and Joanna Lumley are Absolutely Fabulous

To watch La Bete is to witness a tour de force unfold before your eyes for several reasons, not least of which is its stellar cast, led by David Hyde Pierce, Joanna Lumley, and the powerhouse that is Mark Rylance. Going into the theater, I had no idea what to expect, save that the show was a send-up of the plays of Moliere, which I had studied (but only in the perfunctory way that all theater majors must study great theatrical works).

Refreshingly, no knowledge of Moliere or his contemporaries is needed to enjoy the revival of David Hirson’s La Bete, currently playing at the Music Box Theater in New York City.

Every aspect of the show was spectacular. Let’s begin with what is often taken for granted and thus overlooked: the tech. The show opens with a cloudy vision of a 17th-century dinner party before seamlessly dissolving into a study – a room filled to its two-story high ceiling with bookcases. The set is a sight to behold, and on the night I was there earned a round of applause from the audience.

David Hirson’s script is incredible in its ambition, as he wrote the entire play in the rhyming-couplets style of Moliere, and the puns, jokes, and wordplay fly fast and furious. The story itself is simple enough: Pierce plays Elomire (whose name is an anagram for … well, you know), an actor/playwright and leader of a theater troupe, one that is the favorite of the Princess (Lumley). However, their appeal to her is waning, so she introduces them to Valere (Rylance), a street performer whose avant garde works, she hopes, will spice up the troupe. Elomire is having none of it.

Pierce plays Elomire with an endearing fussiness that’s of an entirely different nature than his character on Frasier: here he plays a writer whose main concern is keeping his works highbrow, and when confronted with the vulgar Valere begins to lose his composure. He has perfected the art of playing the long-suffering straight man, and it shows.

Rylance has to be seen to be believed. I wasn’t keeping time, but he delivered a hilarious, rambling, uninterrupted monologue that must have lasted at least a half hour, but might have been longer. He is the truly the comic nucleus of the show, and while we laugh at his oblivious blustering and arrogant posturing, there’s the hint that his character actually possesses true theatrical talent, with a mighty payoff in the end. That Rylance will win a Tony is practically a sure thing.

And then there’s Joanna Lumley, who is, quite frankly, absolutely fabulous. She also can claim one of the most amazing entrances in all of Broadway history: heralding her arrival into the study is what can only be described as a torrent of golden glitter shooting out onstage, accompanied by the sound of gale force winds, a supernatural event so powerful it hysterically drops the maid to her hands and knees. After what felt like minutes, Lumley enters, a statuesque vision in a sparkling gown, her hair whipping around her head.

But lest you worry this all feels too fairy-princess, fear not. Her Princess is at turns vulnerable and stern, but more than once she turns on the rage to hilarious effect, howling at Elomire with a voice that would even make Patsy wilt.

If La Bete has any problems, it’s that it’s weighed down by its overly obvious message. The theme of art being seized and perverted by the vulgar and the lowbrow is nothing new, and is therefore no more relevant now than it was when the play first appeared on Broadway in 1991.

What has changed, however, is the political climate. Maybe it’s just the age we’re living in, but when Elomire gives his show-ending monologue about how those in power are speaking volumes but saying nothing, all I could think about was how the world of this play could benefit from a Rally to Restore Sanity.

It’s not often a farce as well-orchestrated as this comes to Broadway, which is currently infested with exactly the kind of thing the play is railing against. My advice: see it now. You don’t know when you’ll get another chance like this.