By Angus Dalton
It’s a scene straight out of High School Musical. A sports-mad Brendan Xavier is shooting hoops on the court of his western Sydney school when a friend, impressed by an American accent Xavier put on during drama class, asks him to play a role in a school production of Fame.
“It was obviously slim pickings at my school for musical theatre talent,” laughs Xavier, who now prowls the Capitol Theatre stage each night as the hulking anti-hero of the Australian premiere of Beauty and the Beast, his first major lead role. “I’m eternally grateful for that friend.”
Brendan Xavier plays the Beast in the Australian premiere of Beauty and the Beast at the Capitol Theatre, Sydney.Credit: Anna Kucera
He carved time out of basketball, swimming, AFL and cross-country to play Fame’s leading man Nick Piazza.
“There was like a feeling that I had during that show that I don’t get from playing sport or doing a normal job. It’s just this like, an all-encompassing ‘fulfilling my dream’ feeling I don’t get from anything else,” he said.
It took a while for the kid from Quakers Hill to arrive at the conclusion that a full-time career in the performing arts was an option. He considered aeronautical engineering, teaching, police (his mother works for NSW Police). After high school he worked in a cinema and as a landscaper.
The musical features an impressive supporting cast, who almost steal the show.Credit: Daniel Boud
“I never really saw myself pursuing a career in the arts because it really wasn’t shown to me as a kid,” he said.
Xavier, 26, is of Indian and Dutch heritage. There were snatches of representation on American shows such as Glee and a life-changing viewing of The Lion King musical, which was the first time Xavier saw people who looked like him on stage.
The chance to tell the tale as old as time on stage with two actors of colour – Belle is played by Indian actor Shubshri Kandiah – makes the experience extra meaningful.
“The Beast’s story is so based on how he looks and how he feels about how he looks – of course I can relate to that. I draw on those experiences as a kid. I can draw from those experiences of feeling like I don’t belong somewhere,” he said.
“This character is temperamental and confused and angry. Finding that was really difficult but coming from a place of severe uncomfortability about himself – that was when I figure out what he was about, and how to play him.”
Shubshri Kandiah and Brendan Xavier in Disney’s Beauty and The Beast.Credit: Daniel Boud
The physical transformation was a whole other ordeal. Every inch of Xavier’s body was measured and his face was scanned by a camera and a whirring wand so the beast’s nose and hand-sculpted curving horns could be moulded perfectly to his face. The kilograms of costume and prosthetic brought a heft to the Beast that was hard to find in the rehearsal room.
The Beast’s look is just one element of the set and costumes – which took 23 eight-tonne trucks to deliver to Haymarket – that animate the show. It took 14 knotters 4600 hours to braid strands of synthetic, human and yak hair into the production’s 119 wigs.
Nearly 100 custom candles light up the stage and real flames burst from Lumiere the singing candelabra’s wicks during a show-stopping rendition of Be Our Guest that gets audiences on their feet before the curtains drop on Act 1.
Xavier describes his parents as “unreliable critics” because they love everything he does, but their rave review of the show has been backed up by audience reception with the show’s season running until December 24.
“They came to opening night and they were kind of speechless, which is rare for my mum and dad,” he said. “But they’re very, very proud.”
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