A 'Phantom' of a different mask comes to Gateway

It’s a dark, haunting musical about a gravely disfigured man who roams a Paris opera house longing for love.

But it’s not the chandelier-dropping spectacular you’re thinking of. “Phantom,” by Maury Yeston and Arthur Kopit, is a very different animal than Andrew Lloyd Webber’s “The Phantom of the Opera” that ran for 35 years on Broadway before closing in 2023. This version, running at The Gateway in Bellport through Aug. 31, sticks closer to its inspiration, the classic novel by French author Gaston Leroux.

“It’s much deeper and so well written,” says Gateway executive artistic director Paul Allan, noting that this is the theater’s fourth time doing it. With the Broadway show gone, Allan says he felt like it was time to bring back the Yeston-Kopit version. And he’s not overly concerned about “Masquerade,” the new immersive production of the "Phantom" saga Lloyd Webber is running in New York City. “If anything, it might help us,” Allan says. “There’s just more awareness of the show.”

This “Phantom” is all about the backstory. “We get the entire story of how the Phantom became the Phantom,” director Larry Raben says. “That’s not in the other version.” When audiences learn what happened to the Phantom as a child, he says, “there’s not a dry eye in the house. It’s very much a story of tortured humanity … with a gloriously romantic score.”

“You get to know these characters on a more intimate, personal level,” says Matthew Malecki Martinez, who stars as the title character. “It’s a rare gem … you get more invested with this one.” And you learn more about the Phantom’s intense relationship with Christine, says Cassie Austin, who plays the role. “You get to see Christine learning from the Phantom and watch their relationship grow.”

The story behind 'Phantom'

Almost as interesting is the backstory of the show itself. Actor-director Geoffrey Holder acquired the rights to the novel and hired Yeston and Kopit to create a musical, destined for Broadway. As they were searching for backers in 1986, word came that Lloyd Webber’s show was a smash in London and would probably transfer to New York. Needless to say, their financing all but evaporated.

Yeston and Kopit scuttled their plans for a while, then Kopit wrote the teleplay for the 1990 NBC miniseries "The Phantom of the Opera." They decided to give their show another shot, and it finally opened in Houston in 1991. Since then, it has been produced more than 1,000 times — though never on Broadway. Martinez says he’s seen the show described as “the greatest musical never to grace the Broadway stage.”

Regardless, he’s thrilled to be playing the Phantom in any incarnation. “It’s been a dream role of mine,” he says, adding Lloyd Webber's production was “the musical that made me just fall in love with theater.” The story of the Phantom showing his love through music is so powerful, he says. “I want to make people have the feelings this story evokes.”

Those feelings come through mostly with the music. “Yeston is such a poet,” Martinez says. “He does a beautiful job of creating atmosphere within his music,” he adds, pointing out how the music differs by location, whether it's the streets of Paris, the opera house or the dark catacombs that are the Phantom’s lair. There’s a reason for every note, explains Martinez. “When high notes are written, it is a fully emotional moment.” But everything is “rooted in honesty,” he says. “It’s not just spectacle. That’s what I love about this.”

Austin says she’s been a fan of Yeston’s music for a long time. “I think the melodies are so stunning,” she says. Though she’s auditioned for the Lloyd Webber version many times, she says the music in this version is easier to sing. “It goes where you want it to go,” she says, even with some unexpected shifts. She especially loves her opening number, “Home,” a duet with the Phantom that she says “just builds and builds.”

“Maury Yeston weaves such an amazing tapestry of musical styles,” Raben says. “There is color and emotion in his music naturally.” Raben says Yeston’s cast albums work as amazing radio plays, unlike the Lloyd Webber version where you have to know what’s going on. “They're great songs, but they’re all tied to the visuals.” You can listen to Yeston’s music and know the entire story “without ever stepping foot in the theater,” Raben says, though he acknowledges that the pageantry and costumes “add to the theatrical magic.”

They're up for the challenge

Like most musicals, this one has its challenges. For Martinez, they largely come from portraying one of musical theater’s best-known characters. “There’s certainly a lot of expectations that come with this role," he says. “I work to keep it rooted in reality.” And there’s the additional obstacle of “conveying a huge array of emotions without showing my face," he says. "I have to give this performance and make the audience feel what I'm feeling through this mask that I literally choose to wear in order to not let people in. ... There's something so beautiful about the vulnerability.”

Speaking of masks, in this version, the Phantom has multiple versions of the facial covering — among them, one that looks almost human, one that’s mournful and, when he’s in murder mode, a death mask. Unlike the iconic half mask that’s so recognizable, these fully cover his face. “All you can see is his eyes and a bit of jawline,” Raben says.

Austin finds the challenges more character driven. “My greatest challenge with a lot of pieces, especially when you're playing an ingenue,” she says, “is finding the strength within these female characters.” It’s easy to slip into the sweetness of the character, she says, adding that she hopes to portray “a strong, intelligent woman … finding the gumption is always a challenge.”

But perhaps the biggest challenge belongs to Allan, who must convince audiences that this version of the story is worth the ticket price. “So many people know the Lloyd Webber version,” he says. “They know the songs and the spectacle, they know what to expect.” He says that every time the show is done at Gateway, “I worry that people are going to come out and want their money back.”

But it doesn’t happen. The show has much of the same spectacle, the boat, the catacombs — and yes, the chandelier will fall. But by the end of the first act, he says, audiences are caught up in the story. “People tell me they’re so happy to see this version,” he says. Those who haven’t seen the other one tell him they can’t imagine it any other way.

More importantly, he says, “people who have seen it say this one is so much better.”