Theatre in Review: The Hunchback of Notre Dame (Paper Mill Playhouse)Two red-hot lead performances and a roof-rattling score are the marquee items of The Hunchback of Notre Dame, a thundering musical melodrama drawn from Victor Hugo's novel. Michael Arden, usually cast in more conventional leading-man roles, transforms himself stunningly into Quasimodo, the bell-ringing title character, in full audience view. The handsome actor enters and paints a black greasepaint swirl on his face as a hump is affixed to his back; he instantly assumes the character's tortured posture and grotesque face, effortlessly convincing us that he is the deformed, feral creature who lurks in the dark corners of the Parisian cathedral. He scampers around Alexander Dodge's two-level timbered set, groveling in abasement to Dom Claude Frollo, the prelate who cares for him, and yearning pathetically after the gypsy girl who enchants him. And when his full fury is unleashed, he seems to grow several inches. Arden is also gifted with a voice powerful enough to shake any masterpiece of gothic architecture to its foundations, especially in the big ballad "Out There," in which Quasimodo, who all his life has lurked inside Notre Dame's arches, yearns to see the world past the church's doors. Arden's fine work is more than balanced by Patrick Page's Frollo, a holy man whose soul has been distorted by frustrated love and suppressed passion. Possessed of both classical technique and solid musical theatre skills, Page puts his enormous presence and low rumble of a voice to sinister use, creating a man torn between rectitude and desire, using his best silken manner to seduce those who stand in his way, and furiously condemning them to hell when persuasion proves fruitless. Even in stillness, his posture impeccably erect, his eyes focused on some distant shore, the actor's face conveys the inner battle between impulse and control; when, in the number "Sanctuary," he instructs Quasimodo in the treacherous ways of the world, we are given an elegant lesson in the twisting of an innocent mind. Unable to accept his lust for Esmerelda, he turns his rage on the world, displaying an almost psychopathic urge to destroy in the number "Hellfire." These performances work so well in part because the show's creators have managed to carve a lucid, fast-moving narrative out of Hugo's mighty novel, and because the director, Scott Schwartz, ensures that the story's events unfold at a headlong pace. The opening number, "The Bells of Notre Dame," economically establishes the musical's back story, in which Frollo loses his beloved brother to fleshly revelry, accepting his dying sibling's deformed infant son, whom he raises in a kind of captivity inside the cathedral walls. A complex, three-song sequence, "Topsy Turvy," "Rest and Recreation," and "Rhythm of the Tambourine," deftly introduces Esmerelda, the gypsy, who instantly bewitches Quasimodo, Frollo, and Phoebus, the soldier in charge of the cathedral's guard. It also establishes the outcast status of gypsies in Paris and provides Quasimodo with a terrifying and humiliating adventure in the real world. The first-act closer, "Esmerelda," brings together all the characters and their narrative threads in a multi-part rouser similar to "One Day More" in Les Misérables and the "Tonight" quintet in West Side Story. Peter Parnell's book has its banalities, especially in the flattish romantic sparring of Esmerelda and Phoebus, but his narrative construction is solid, underscoring the theme of mankind's terrible need to demonize society's outliers and deftly juggling the characters, most of whom are rendered with surprising complexity. In addition to Arden and Page, Ciara Renée is a suitably fiery, surprisingly tough-minded Esmerelda, her exotic looks driving all three leading men wild even when she is wielding a knife. She has to deal with the score's weakest number, "God Help the Outcasts," which merely restates the obvious, but she is charming in "Top of the World," in which Quasimodo shows off Paris to Esmerelda from his aerie in the bell tower. As the battle-haunted Phoebus, who earns Esmerelda's love, Andrew Samonsky is the show's designated cardboard hero, left with surprisingly little to do, most of it clichéd; he's a pro, however, and partners solidly with Renée and her fellow gypsies on the Act II ballad "In a Place of Miracles." As Clopin, the leader of the gypsies, Erik Liberman, one foot extended back, his head cocked to one side, his arms open in invitation, is an amusingly shifty figure with an undertone of real bravery. The production also benefits from the presence of the Continuo Arts Symphonic Chorus, with 32 voices that lend a quasi-operatic grandeur to several numbers. Dodge's enormous setting, with multiple staircases, choir lofts, and six enormous bells, is a genuine stunner, able to stand in for several locations in the cathedral and on the streets of Paris. Howell Binkley's lighting aids enormously these transitions, while also employing light-and-shadow effects that add to the drama. Alejo Vietti's costumes contrast clerical robes with soldiers' outfits and colorful gypsy garb. Gareth Owen's sound design is a bit on the loud side but is also marvelously clear; this is probably the best sound design I've ever encountered in this acoustically challenged space. The Hunchback of Notre Dame is partly derived from the 1996 Disney animated film, which I have never seen, although I am reliably informed that the stage musical is its own creature, much darker and far more adult. Its appearance at Paper Mill naturally leads to speculation that it might follow Newsies, the last Disney show there, to Broadway. While offering the slight note of caution that Broadway these days seems devoted mostly to far more frivolous amusements, it nevertheless seems impossible that a work of this ambition won't find a theatre next season. A show with this much vigor and excitement demands to be seen. -- David Barbour 
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