Word: phoebus
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...which is very interesting and valid but misses the point. The key to the WB's success is this: babes, male and female. With the glossy yet smoldering Sarah Michelle Gellar of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, the coltish Katie Holmes of Dawson's Creek, the Phoebus-like Barry Watson of 7th Heaven and all the rest, the WB has the best-looking stars on TV. Is this business really so very complicated...
...addition to Quasi and Frollo, Esmerelda is faced with a third suitor, the handsome and gallant Phoebus, Captain of the Guards. This love rectangle is new to Disney, as Quasi finds himself competing with another good guy for Esmerelda's love...
This Esmeralda is less a medieval Gypsy than a willful California teen with Joan of Arc aspirations; imagine a Loire Valley Girl, a Militia Silverstone. Hurling invective at Frollo, flirting with the hunky, John Smith-like Captain Phoebus (Kevin Kline) and singing the film's most poignant solo, about a Gypsy holocaust ("God help the outcasts, or nobody will"), she emerges as the latest in Disney's line of feminist freedom fighters--a Pocahontas with Romany eyes...
...make up for the lack of laughs by relying on tiresome sight gags. As Esmerelda, the gypsy beauty, Heitzi Epstein is only fair: Her voice is good, but she lacks the force to capture the audience when the orchestra stops. Dave Studenmeund, as the lecherous but cowardly Captain Phoebus de Chateaupers and Maury Levin, as the lecherous but frustrated poet Pierre, also do their best with the weak script, while Stacy Stein shines as the unqualifiedly lecherous Archdeacon Frollo. Perhaps the best performance, though, comes from Fred Barton, who plays the politically slick hosier Jacques Coppenole. With a strong voice...
What problems there are, then, clearly lie in the script. Even the most energetic cast could not breathe life into some of the mothballed lines in this play. (Take the following scintillating dialogue--please: "You can't arrest me, I'm the Hunchback of Notre Dame." Phoebus: "I don't care if you're the quarterback of Purdue." Not exactly "Saturday Night Live" material.) And Borowitz's direction, though competent, is generally blind to the flaws in his own script. As a result, the play drags woefully in the first act, with each actor trying to make the best...