Disney princess Shubshri Kandiah on why Belle is her favourite role
Shubshri Kandiah is thrilled to be returning to Brisbane to star as the strong-willed, independent Belle in Disney’s Beauty and the Beast the Musical.
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Beauty and the Beast’s Belle is not your usual princess – which is exactly why Shubshri Kandiah wanted to play her.
On at Brisbane’s Lyric Theatre from February 15, Beauty and the Beast received rave reviews in its smash hit Sydney season, with critical acclaim for Brisbane-based Kandiah’s strong-willed and bespectacled Belle.
“Belle was the first Disney princess who was her own hero,” Kandiah, 28, says,
“And I love that her storyline is not your typical princess journey.
“I mean, she’s a princess at the end, but before that she’s just a young woman on her own emotional and learning journey, as all young women go on.
“She values her independence, and she’s not waiting for any prince to rescue her.”
Kandiah’s Belle, as in the original storyline, is also a bookworm, but in a first for this Disney production, her Belle wears glasses on stage, a costume choice Kandiah is particularly proud of.
“I love that she wears them, and when I look out into the audience I see a little girl in glasses wearing a yellow dress (just like Belle’s iconic costume in Act 2) and they are just beaming, you know it means the world to them.”
Kandiah has made something of a specialty of playing princesses – since graduating from the Queensland Conservatorium of Music in 2018, she’s played three of them; Cinderella, Jasmine (Aladdin) and now Belle.
“I know,” she laughs.
“It’s not something I planned, but I feel incredibly lucky to have played each one of them. In my head they are all such individual characters, and I’ve taken a little bit from each one.
“I think perhaps Jasmine and Belle are the ones I sometimes wish I was more like, in the way they are so strong and determined to stand up for themselves.
“I think I’ve learned quite a bit from those young women,” she smiles, adding that she can’t wait to introduce her latest princess to Queensland audiences.
Performing at QPAC’s Lyric Theatre in Beauty and the Beast is, Kandiah says, “like coming full circle” – the Perth-born, Brisbane-taught, triple threat making her professional debut at QPAC in 2018.
“Oh, I just love it there, it means so much to me,” she says.
“My very first professional role out of the Con was playing Princess Jasmine in Aladdin at the Lyric, and I will forever remember the first night I played there. It was May 23, 2018, and when I came out of the stage door, all my family, my fellow students and my teachers from the Con were waiting for me. I will never forget that moment, just seeing them all there, it meant everything to me.”
Kandiah credits the Conservatorium, part of Griffith University, with her showstopping career, saying she believes it is “the best training ground a performer could hope for”.
“I could not be more grateful that I ended up studying in Brisbane,” she says.
“I did have to move from Perth, where I grew up, and away from my family, and that
was really hard, particularly in my first year, when I was pretty homesick, but I settled in
and moved in with a couple of other girls who were studying there and then I never looked back.
“It’s an extraordinary training ground. You learn so much. We did voice and speech classes, singing classes, dancing classes, jazz and tap and ballet, acting classes, which a lot of courses do, but what makes the Con stand out, I think, is all the extras they give you.
“You have the opportunity to create your own cabaret, and it has this incredible relationship with QPAC. This means that students have the opportunity to do workshops there and showcases there – I had so many opportunities to perform on QPAC stages, the Lyric Theatre, the Concert Hall, the Cremorne. You get so much practical experience, so that by the time you graduate, nothing fazes you, you are so well prepared for auditions.”
And, Kandiah laughs, she’s had a few.
Before being accepted into the Conservatorium, Kandiah was studying for a primary school teaching degree, a far safer career path than the stage, but one which “just didn’t feel right”. Deciding she wanted to become a full-time performer, Kandiah says she was rejected from other courses before gaining her place at the Conservatorium.
“I think I’m a good example of not giving up on your dreams. I hope people who see me on stage know that I experienced rejection too before I got there.
“While I was studying for my education degree, I did a one year certificate course in musical theatre at WAAPA (the Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts) and I just loved it. I realised this was what I really wanted to do so I auditioned for their school full time, and did not get in. I auditioned for another school and did not get in, and then I auditioned for the Con, and did get in.
“It ended up being exactly the right place for me, so sometimes in life when things don’t go your way, it ends up being exactly the right way. I think everything happens for a reason, and I think rejection is very much a part of all of our lives, and something we can learn from.
“When I miss out on something, I think, well, where could I have done better, or what can I learn from this.
“When you look at rejection as a learning experience, it’s easier, and sometimes, particularly in my profession, it helps to know that it can also be a little bit of luck, a little bit of you are the right age or height for a part, the right piece of the jigsaw puzzle, so in those ways it’s not even about you.
“I think if you really, really love something and are prepared to work really hard to get it, eventually, you will.”
And Kandiah does work really hard.
To win the role of Belle – despite already playing other lead roles in major productions, she underwent several auditions, including a gruelling, tap-based choreography piece she found “so, so hard”.
“I can dance, but I wouldn’t call myself a dancer. I was doing Cinderella (Opera Australia’s 2022/2023 season of Rodgers and Hammerstein’s Cinderella) so I couldn’t make the first round of auditions, but my agent suggested I send them a tape of my work.
“Then I was asked to come in for the second round, which was scenes and songs, and also included some tap.
“I worked so hard, but there was another girl there that day who was such a beautiful tapper and I had to keep saying, ‘I’m so sorry, but can we go again?’”
Kandiah laughs. “I don’t know what they thought of me, maybe they thought, ‘Well, she’s a trier.’”
Called back for a third audition, which was filmed and sent to Disney’s Theatrical Productions’ head office in the United States, Kandiah was told she had won the role – and that is, she says, when the real work began.
Belle is a huge part, with Kandiah on stage for much of the performance, the show itself a spectacle, with 300 costumes, stunning sets (there are 97 custom electric candles in the Beast’s castle) and all singing, all dancing, all tapping numbers like the Be Our Guest showstopper, featuring the whole cast.
“They lift me up every performance. I just think the ensemble and principals are astonishingly good.”
Kandiah shares the stage with Brisbane’s Jackson Head as Gaston, Rohan Browne as Lumiere, Gareth Jacobs as Cogsworth, the Gold Coast’s Jayde Westaby as Mrs Potts, Nick Cox as Le Fou, Rodney Dobson as Maurice, Hayley Martin as Babette, Alana Tranter as Madame, and of course, her Beast, Brendan Xavier.
“I love working with Brendan, he’s just so good in the role,” Kandiah says.
“He’s everything the role should be, including in the wonderful vulnerability he shows. I think we are believable together and I find this incredible because there were no chemistry reads (when producers test out different pairings and groupings in the audition process) in the auditions. So when you see how well Cogsworth and Lumiere go together, or Mrs Potts with Babette, I just think they did a wonderful job. For me, I couldn’t ask for a more supportive cast.”
Supportive too, is Kandiah’s partner Aaron, who she lives with in Brisbane, and her parents Raj and Kumar, who live in Perth, but, she says, will come to “more than one” of her Brisbane shows.
“I really can’t wait to get back to Brisbane. Being away from the people you love is hard, and I’m really looking forward to, well the weather for one thing, I can’t wait to get outdoors in the sunshine and go for walks in the Enoggera Reservoir, and also the area around QPAC is just beautiful as well.”
And in her own fairytale ending Kandiah will return to Brisbane as the Belle of the ball.
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