The Candlelight Dinner Playhouse opens its 12th season with a beautiful and haunting production of The Hunchback of Notre Dame.
France, 1482.
Archdeacon Frollo (David Wygant), rules the city of Paris with an iron hand. The imposing and beautiful cathedral of Notre Dame is his sanctuary, and within its confines lives a young, hunchbacked man whose task is to ring the cathedral bells when required.
Twenty years previously, Frollo and his younger brother, Jehan (Tim Howard), had been orphans raised by the church. Frollo had embraced the religious life but the rebellious Jehan fell in love with a Gypsy woman and was exiled. When he returns nine months later his Gypsy lover is dead and he is dying of the pox. He asks Frollo to care for their son. The baby is hunchbacked and deformed – made a monster, declares Frollo, because of the wickedness in which he was conceived. About to toss this “monster” into the Seine, Frollo stops when he catches sight of statues of the saints on the cathedral walls, and instead resolves to raise the boy, whom he calls Quasimodo (half-formed) and dedicate the boy to the church.
It is the day of the Feast of Fools – the only day when gypsies are legally allowed into the city of Paris. Frollo, who hates Gypsies with a passion because of his brother’s fate, vows that there will be no Feast of Fools the next year. Quasimodo (Ethan Knowles), now twenty years old, has long yearned to venture outside the cathedral but has never had the courage. Spurred on by Frollo’s news, Quasimodo ventures into the city, where he learns that his crimes of being deformed and ugly are indeed judged without pity.
Ethan Knowles as Quasimodo, the Hunchback of Notre Dame. (Photo courtesy Candlelight Dinner Playhouse)
The Candlelight’s beautiful set for Hunchback (designed by Ranae Selmeyer), with a glorious stained glass window behind the bells, provides a stark contrast to the poverty and desperation in which the majority of citizens of Paris live.
The cathedral’s robe-and-cowl clad choir – Thomas Castro, Nicole Celiliani, Ryne Haldeman (he of the beautiful tenor voice), Sara Kowalski, George Lemmon, Victoria Pace, Todd Ressegue and Samantha Jo Staggs – stand on either side of the cathedral/stage and sing such songs as “Olim,” “The Bells of Notre Dame,” and “While the City Slumbered,” and provide even more emotion when in accompaniment, such as for the gypsy Esmerelda in “God Help the Outcasts,” and Frollo in the dramatic “Hellfire.”
Sarah Grover as the gypsy Esmeralda (photo courtesy Candlelight Dinner Playhouse)
Sarah Grover plays the gypsy Esmeralda – beautiful and charming – who all unwittingly bewitches not only Phoebus (Scott Hurst) the newly appointed captain of the Cathedral Guard; Quasimodo, whom she rescues from the brutality of the revelers during the Feast of Fools but also the devout and Gypsy-hating Frollo.
David Wygant’s Frollo is a sympathetic villain – clearly devoted to his brother when they were young, devoted to the church body and soul for twenty years afterward, and all undone when he becomes attracted to Esmeralda. He doesn’t understand his feelings and places the blame on her and her witchcraft – but that doesn’t stop him from trying to seduce her, or to frame her for attempted murder so she will be forced to beg him to rescue her from the stake – which she doesn’t do.
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Frollo (David Wygant) sings of Hellfire
Ethan Knowles is Quasimodo. He’s young, he’s innocent, he’s been told he’s a monster by his master all his life but he doesn’t feel like a monster…
His only friends are the gargoyles and statues of saints within the bell tower. The gargoyles don’t come to life – their voices are provided by shrouded figures behind them – so that the audience knows that the gargoyles and saints aren’t really talking to Quasimodo. Quasimodo’s only friends are imaginary and he hears their voices only in his mind.
Knowles displays a fine physicality and possesses a strong, passionate voice, on display for “Sanctuary” (a duet with Frollo), “Top of the World” (sung with Esmeralda), and the despairing “Made of Stone.”
Although the Disney movie provided the songs for this musical, it has not provided the “Disneyfied” ending. We do have a happy ending, of sorts, for it’s back to Quasimodo and Frollo once more. Frollo wants things to go back to the way they were, before temptation entered his life, but Quasimodo has finally learned that of the two men in the tower, it is not he who is the monster.
The Candelight’s production of The Hunchback of Notre Dame runs until November 17, 2019.
The food
What should we eat in Paris but Pork Aux Champignons (pork chop topped with mushroom gravy), Chicken Dijon (bone-in chicken breast slathered with creamy Dijon sauce), Parmesan-crusted tilapia or ratatouille (tomatoes, zucchini, eggplant, onion, and red bell pepper, served with au gratin potatoes).
Garden salad with a delicious croissant
Bone-in chicken dijon -Délicieuse!
The joy of going to the theatre with two people – you get to split two desserts. One half Chocolate Torte Overload Cake, one half Caramel Galaxy Cake, and some ice cream on the side
If you go
Several of the cast of The Hunchback of Notre Dame are also your servers, and invariably are helpful and efficient. Want to take a photo of your server in costume? Go ahead! (Just don’t do it when they’re on stage!)
The Candlelight Dinner Theatre is just off I-25, via exit 254. Take the frontage road to Marketplace Drive.
