Beauty and the Beast breaking new frontiers in new Sydney stage show

Shubshri Kandiah and Brendan Xavier, both Australians with Indian heritage, grew up feeling like ‘others’. Now they’re taking the lead in Sydney’s biggest new show. And you don’t want to miss it.

Growing up with their own families on different sides of the country – nearly 4000km apart – Shubshri Kandiah and Brendan Xavier experienced similar feelings about their childhood. Twenty plus years later, they find they share that common feeling of growing up as “other” in Australia as they are about to embark on undoubtedly the biggest moment of their careers as the leads in Disney’s Beauty and the Beast.

“It is super exciting the way casting has moved,” Kandiah says. “It is super important to see representation on stage and screen – if you can see it, you can actually be it.

“Seeing someone of colour on stage, that would have meant the world to me as a child. It is not something that I saw a lot of growing up and those that I did see, I really connected to … movies like Bend It Like Beckham or Disney movies that incorporated culture like Mulan. So I do think it means a lot to see that on stage and I am super happy to be representing my community.”

Back then, as a young girl in suburban Perth, Kandiah would never have dreamt of playing Belle on stage in the classic Disney story.

Beauty and The Beast main cast members Brendan Xavier and Shubshri Kandiah have landed the main roles in Disney musical to be staged at Sydney’s Capitol Theatre. Picture: Disney / Sam Ruttyn

Her parents had immigrated to Australia from Malaysia, both of Indian heritage.

“I was quite often the only brown person in my class in many things, at uni I was, in primary school I was, there was a handful of other girls of colour in my high school but I always felt like the minority, like I always felt different. And I think this story is celebrating people that are different and the way we treat people who are slightly different in the community, how we ‘other’ them. And I actually think this is a really beautiful story about people who are ‘othered’ finding each other and the beautiful friendship that they form. That’s really special to see.”

Same for Xavier, who grew up in Sydney’s western suburbs, around Kellyville. His dad was born and raised in India and moved to Australia with his family when he was around 17 while his mum is of Dutch heritage.

“I was also the only Indian kid at school,” he says. “You deal with bullying and you deal with racism from an early age. You don’t really understand as a kid what is going on, you just don’t think people like you, which is a bit of an odd experience to have as a kid and not really understanding what it means, and not seeing yourself in media was a really big thing. Or seeing yourself in media, but it was always a bit of a caricature, which was hard to deal with as a kid. It was almost embarrassing.

“You grow up to be really proud of who you are and proud of your heritage but as a kid, you want to fit in as much as possible so having those experiences was really tough.”

Financially, Xavier’s family was working class and did everything they could to forge a better life for their two children.

Brendan Xavier and Shubshri Kandiah are breaking new ground in Australian theatre. Picture: Disney / Sam Ruttyn

“We weren’t the richest family either so we really made it work … my parents were amazing in that way,” he says. “They really put everything they had into me and my sister’s childhood … we had to move to a bit more of a rough area so we could stay in a good school and get a better education. They really looked out for us.”

Beauty and the Beast, a “tale as old as time”, opened at Sydney’s Capitol Theatre on June 14. Kandiah, 28, is to play Belle while Xavier, 26, is Beast. The pair scored the coveted roles after a national search by Disney Theatrical Productions.

Xavier came from two years as a member of the ensemble and understudy for Kristoff in Frozen while Kandiah previously played the lead in Rodgers and Hammerstein’s Cinderella at Sydney’s Lyric Theatre, and Jasmine in Disney’s Aladdin.

It is the first Disney production to hit Sydney since Frozen and is a major coup for the state as it is expected to provide a welcome boost to the economy.

The production features reimagined sets shipped in from the UK and cutting edge technology. Matt West is on board as director and choreographer with music from original composer Alan Menken and lyricists Howard Ashman and Tim Rice.

Beauty and the Beast the stage musical first ran on Broadway in 1994 and came three years after Disney’s Academy Award winning animated film. The original story was based on the 1756 fairy-tale of the same name by Jeanne-Marie Leprince de Beaumont and is essentially a story about fitting in and not judging a book by its cover.

Beauty and the Beast first ran on Broadway in 1994 and has had long, successful runs around the world, including London (pictured). Picture: Johan Persson

The story has been subtly updated to reflect modern-day society. For example, in this new production, Belle wears prescription glasses.

“If you see something, you think that it is an achievable goal,” Kandiah says of reflecting everyday society in the characters.

“But also just to not feel so alone, to see somebody that looks like me that is doing these things that is a really huge thing. If you only saw one certain type of person on TV and you didn’t look like that, then it is like, ‘Where is my place?’ ‘Can I ever be the hero of a story?’”

She adds: “Belle is such an incredible, inspirational character because she is so strong- willed. She really doesn’t allow herself to be mistreated in her time with the Beast, or her time with Gaston, she stands up for what she believes in but I also think she’s such a warm person and she makes other people want to be better just because they are around her.

“That is a really special persona and a really cool character to get to play.”

For Xavier, the prospect of playing Beast has been liberating too.

“Everyone growing up has these masks they put on themselves and they always get confused about how they feel,” he says. “The big thing the Beast feels is frustration and we all know what that feels like growing up and being young adults. I related to it because I’ve obviously been judged for how I look, and not maybe to the extent of how Beast feels, but playing the humanity of him has been really important to me. Like the absolute frustration and responsibility that he has, and that coming across, and him not being able to deal with it.

“Obviously I have developed really healthy ways of dealing with being ‘other’ and being a minority, whereas he’s still figuring it out.

Shubshri Kandiah studied primary school teaching before turning to the theatre. Picture: Disney / Sam Ruttyn

Showing the humanity of the Beast is important, says Brendan Xavier. Picture: Disney / Sam Ruttyn

“So it’s this balance of trying to figure out who he is and being frustrated and showing all of these different facets of his character.

“It has been challenging but also really fun to explore and almost cathartic and therapeutic in the sense of being able to go through all of that and then, at the end, you have this fully realised human being, a man, that comes through.”

Xavier himself has been through his own journey of exploration from an early age.

He never saw himself as a stage performer. Growing up, he was into sport. He worked as a gardener for a while and dreamt of a lot of different careers as a kid.

“I really wanted to do something physical with my life, something outdoors,” he says.

“I had a job as a gardener, like a landscaper learning on the job. I didn’t grow up performing, I thought I’d be doing lots of different careers.

“For a long time, I wanted to be an aeronautical engineer and for a different time I wanted to be a teacher. I wanted to be a police officer. I wanted to be everything but a performer. I was also heavily involved in sport at school.”

A friend asked him to be in a school musical and that started Xavier on the path he has now chosen as a career.

“From there, I developed this sort of unconscious love of it,” he says. “I didn’t really understand why, I was just drawn to performing. I never would have registered though that it was a career I could do. But then I would watch sports and see Indigenous players and African-American players in basketball. I was like, ‘I could do that sport because I can see all of these sports personalities that look like me.’ But then I would go into the city and watch Anything Goes and think, ‘There is nothing in it for me.’

Beauty and the Beast premieres on June 15 in Sydney. Picture: Johan Persson/Disney

It was Disney’s The Lion King that opened Xavier’s eyes to the possibility.

He saw the Australian production first at around the age of 10 and then six or seven years later. Both times were at the Capitol Theatre, on the very stage he is about to make his big leading role debut. “It changed my entire life,” he says. “At the end of it, I was like, ‘I could do that.’ And so for the first time in my life, I set a goal for myself that I would be a lead at the Capitol (theatre) and now that is becoming a reality.

“I don’t think it will hit until opening night and I get to go out and bow in front of family and friends and really experience that.”

Kandiah similarly never truly thought a career on stage was on the cards for her.

As an only child, she was the family performer though. She took on extra-curricular activities of Indian dancing and the like. And she studied teaching before following her dreams to the stage.

“Musical theatre was just not something known to us really,” she says.

“Obviously we knew of it but it wasn’t a big part of my life growing up. I was heavily involved in the arts, but more Indian things. I did classical Indian dancing, Indian singing and ballet as a kid. It was in high school that I discovered musical theatre and my passion for that.

“Leaving school, my parents were a bit concerned that it wasn’t a stable industry so I studied primary school education.”

Theatre, dance and the like, was something for fun.

“I did two years of a primary education degree and then I just realised it was not for me,” Kandiah says. “That’s when I pushed to do musical theatre full time. My parents really wanted me to finish the degree – I did not.

“I knew what my passion was. I am the kind of person that works hard if I want to work hard. It was the kind of thing where I would work for my musical theatre stuff but not much else.”

Whatever the future holds for these rising stars, with Beauty and the Beast cementing them as bona fide stars of the professional theatre industry, both see endless possibilities and opportunity.

“It has been amazing to now get to experience theatre and understand that I don’t have to have The Lion King as my goal,” Xavier says.

“I can do Beauty and the Beast and be the lead. I can do any show and play the lead. That is what was significant to me growing up, that I don’t have to just play these characters that are set as people that look like me.

“I can recreate the story around how I look and how I am as a performer.”

Tickets to Disney’s Beauty and the Beast are on sale now for performances through to 5th November through Ticketmaster