Andrew Penner, Hailey Gillis, & Landon Doak in Tiger Bride | Photo by Dahlia Katz
Inspired by the vibes here, I’ve put a hold at the library on Angela Carter’s The Bloody Chamber. I want to delve further into the sensibilities that informed this dark, earthy and brooding theatrical song cycle. Tiger Bride, presented by Soulpepper, is a musical adaptation of Carter’s short story “The Tiger’s Bride,” a feminist-skewed retelling of “Beauty and the Beast.” Without feeling at all rushed, it packs an abundance of potent atmosphere into its 80 minutes. It’s quite astonishing just how thoroughly meditative it is while also being expressively chaotic and unhinged.
I’m going to fawn here over the purposeful artifice here. The aesthetic director Frank Cox-O’Connell’s whimsically portentous production is so totally my jam. Every space we encounter in this reimagined gothic horror classic is cramped and stifling. Shannon Lea Doyle’s scenic elements are a dark wonderland of clutter that seduces and disorients. A minimalist and abstracted representation of a sequestered palace, it is both opulent and ominous. A barricade of objects line the back wall, draped in obscuring fabric. Mirrored doors give way to cloistered passageways. Playing tables break apart to form the slanted floor of an imprisoning, though luxurious, room.
Frank Donato’s lighting design provides a murky ambiance, the eerie hues catching in an ever-present theatrical haze. This is the claustrophobia-inducing, fever-dream space in which our heroine, the “Girl” (Hailey Gillis), finds herself confronting a mysterious “Beast” (Andrew Penner). Instead of taming him through her love, this narrative allows her the space to discover her own wild impulses.
After betting her off to this wealthy, masked weirdo, her father (also Penner) disappears from the story, though having Penner play both roles does provides a certain thematic resonance. In patriarchal tradition, she’s been groomed by one man for another. As her father, he would have seen her naked coming into the world, and now this enigmatic man of means demands to see her more developed body. It rhymes. The intriguing narrative dimension Carter introduces to this classic story is her meeting the animal on her own terms by acknowledging she’s very much an animal herself.
Some of my favourite lyrics from this raspy, rock-infused cabaret (all songs composed by Cox-O’Connell, Gillis, and Penner) are viscerally evocative—a sensual blend of flesh and fur, abject bodily odours blending with the scents of civilization. Musically, this is as immersive and disorienting as the aesthetic. Structurally, it’s anarchic, in playful defiance of dependable musical theatre conventions. The actors themselves performing the music adds to the carnal, vaudevillian meta-theatricality.
Hailey Gillis & Andrew Penner in Tiger Bride | Photo by Dahlia Katz
Gillis offers a deeply compelling portrait of dynamic femininity here. With evocative physicality, she pulls us with her from dependence and wariness to emboldened curiosity and self-assertion, from the timidly of hiding behind her father to wrapping her exposed flesh in black fur—her performance is fully intelligent and sensual in equal measure.
Though we sense exactly who the father is, Penner is most emotionally persuasive near the end, when he drops the mask of his enigmatic Beast persona and bares his vulnerability to meet hers. He seems almost dazed, intoxicated by his own animalistic appetites and in awe of this woman whose demonstrable hunger radiates empathy. Their final duet is sweet and empowering with an edge of rather exhilarating danger.
Landon Doak’s valet, the Beast’s servant, is an integral figure here. They are so polite, patient, and attentive—though we wonder if we can trust their genteel persona. Doak’s vibe is playful yet efficient and business-like. In their final scene, after having shed—like the the Girl and Beast—some misleading clothes, we sense some of the animalistic urges lurking in the valet too.
Like the original story it’s based on (and the Disney Renaissance classic), this casts a spell. Though it could be my own specific projection, if you squint through the gloom, you can sort of make out a conversation with the brightness of the Howard Ashman-Alan Menken material, throwing the complicated humanity of this moody take into stirring relief.
Tiger Bride
May 29 to June 14, 2026
Young Centre for the Performing Arts
(50 Tank House Lane)
80 minutes
Hailey Gillis & Landon Doak in Tiger Bride | Photo by Dahlia Katz