| "Gigi" last night - solid, middling show with some charms | |
| Posted by: | Marlo*Manners 05:10 pm EDT 05/07/15 |
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| I got around to seeing "Gigi" last night and did not hate it. It is a middle of the road adaptation by Heidi Thomas that has some good ideas and some bad ones. It plays it way too safe and lacks a sense of really haute elegance, wit and style. A lot of the European sensibility is gone. Everyone talks about how Gaston's age has been lowered and I think Gigi's age raised to minimize the "ick" factor. (Adult thirty-ish male with 15 year-old girl) Gaston is actually a hard role to bring off - Louis Jourdan in the movie is absolute perfection. In the 1949 French movie with Danièle Delorme, Frank Villard looks more like a middle-aged roué with a paunch, droopy mustache and jowls. Seeing him paired with the elfin Delorme at the end is off-putting. Corey Cott is handsome but a very lightweight juvenile with a light pop tenor voice. He seemed a little unsubstantial. Howard McGillin plays Honoré like an aging juvenile with a perma-smile and little rakish dash. Again Maurice Chevalier has this down. So the men are a little weak. Vanessa Hudgens certainly looks like a teenage sex kitten but of the energetic All-American kind - wish Audrey Hepburn had filmed some of her stage performance. Her singing voice is also energetic but without subtlety or charm - brassy pop belting with a tinny top register. On the other hand, as Gigi grew up in Act II and to more spirited and combative, I really started to enjoy Hudgens' acting performance and she seemed to have way more authority and presence onstage. Victoria Clark is getting the diva treatment. Despite the fact that Mamita is supposed to be something of a frumpy French landlady type and much poorer and less elegant than her sister Alicia, Clark swans around in big picture hats, lace trimmed silk tea gowns and expensive looking accessories. She cooks cassoulet at home on a weeknight in a burgundy silk gown with black lace trimming and no apron. Clark also gloms three numbers written for other characters - Gigi's "Say a Prayer", Honoré's "Thank Heaven for Little Girls" becomes a duet with Alicia and "I'm So Glad I'm Not Young Anymore" is now a duet with Honoré. Actually , I found I preferred Clark performing these numbers with her gorgeous high mezzo than having the Gigi or Honoré do them. "I'm So Glad That I'm Not Young Anymore" worked well as a duet. "Thank Heaven for Little Girls" did provide a plot function by having the plotting Grandmother and Great Aunt sing it though I don't get an "ick" factor from Chevalier singing it in the movies - the point is that little girls grow into women. And as women then they wow men. Pedophilia is not the point - plus lots of European love women - all women. Honoré is one of them. Also Thomas' book gives Mamita a lot of moral scruples from the get go about pimping out her granddaughter while in the movies and novels, she develops scruples and doubts as she follows her plan. There are all sorts of preachy scenes in Act II and some good scenes from the novella/film adaptations that are missing - like the scene where Gigi serves Gaston dinner in a private salon at Maxims like a polished courtesan and it upsets him. In this one, Gigi is the one who gets upset at Maxims - actually they both do. I thought Dee Hoty was hilarious and looked magnificent as grande dame courtesan Aunt Alicia. Her delivery was sensational and she had presence and wit and style that were missing elsewhere. Steffanie Leigh brings more to the character of Liane than Eva Gabor did in the movie (divine as Eva was). In the ensemble I was impressed by talented acrobatic dancer Manny Stark who also plays one of the lawyers. Now for the songs - I actually hated most of the new Lerner songs for the 1974 Broadway "Gigi". They really do not impress on the OBC album. "The Contract" is just a retread of "Gigi" with lame lyrics and is a personality piece for Agnes Moorehead. "In This Wide, Wide World" is fairly tuneless with no melody developing and weak platitudinous lyrics. But in this version both these numbers shine and the performers have a lot to do with it. They really put the material over and it doesn't seem that much weaker than the original movie songs. "Paris is Paris Again" is a good opening number. In fact many of the numbers worked well in context. Commenters suggested that the show put "It's a Bore" first inviting the audience to agree - however that wasn't the first number at all but the second as in the movie. Also the bizarre image of can-can dancers invading Mamita's flat in "The Night They Invented Champagne" is not what happens onstage at the finale of Act I. Gaston clearly states that he is en route to an outdoor fête he is is throwing. At the end of the scene the set pieces for the flat are swept into the flies and we see Gigi and Mamita partying with the dancers at Gaston's party - it isn't established that he takes them but it does explain why they would be outside with can-can dancers and a bunch of partygoers. Then there is the omnipresent staircase - it is pretty far upstage, it a very stylish elegant wrought iron art nouveau structure and can easily be covered by flats and flies that are placed in front of it. The look of the show is not that elegant or stylish - it really needs Cecil Beaton designs. The sort of lightweight unit set production makes it very suitable for touring which is what seems to be the aim of the producers. "On the Town" and "Gigi" are losing money on Broadway but can make their money back on the road tour. But the "Straight from the Broadway Run" imprimatur is needed to gives the show some prestige on the road. | |
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| re: "Gigi" last night - solid, middling show with some charms | |
| Posted by: | AlanScott 12:33 pm EDT 05/08/15 |
| In reply to: | "Gigi" last night - solid, middling show with some charms - Marlo*Manners 05:10 pm EDT 05/07/15 |
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| At least when I saw it, which was after the opening, Gaston said that he was giving a party at the Eiffel Tower, but then he decides to stay at Mamita's. He says that he will ask Honoré to host it instead. It seemed to me that they go down to the street during the song. So it seemed to me that we then saw a number of women walking around the street dressed as can-can girls and then actually doing the can-can, including splits, on the sidewalk? Perhaps they have changed some lines recently to try to make sense of it. "A Tojours" was written for but cut from the film. I think it may be in there as underscoring somewhere. The song was recorded on the 1958 two-LP set An Evening With Lerner and Loewe, though it was only included on the mono release. The music was used in 1973 in "The Contract," and it's still in there (the "Seven rooms" section) so it's a little odd to also have Liane sing "A Tojours." I've always liked "In This Wide, Wide World." | |
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| "A Toujours" in the film was | |
| Posted by: | jimvar1 03:54 pm EDT 05/08/15 |
| In reply to: | re: "Gigi" last night - solid, middling show with some charms - AlanScott 12:33 pm EDT 05/08/15 |
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| the Skaters' Waltz Eva Gabor was skating to. And yes, it is the same melody as well for "The Contract;" but I didn't find it odd that the 2015 Liane would sing "A Toujours" since it was the character's theme to begin with in the 1958 film. So, in a way, it came full circle. Now, why didn't they include a true ice-skating scene again in this GIGI? Lerner had it for DANCE A LITTLE CLOSER; and it's also in WHITE CHRISTMAS I think. | |
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| re: "A Toujours" in the film was | |
| Posted by: | AlanScott 04:45 pm EDT 05/08/15 |
| In reply to: | "A Toujours" in the film was - jimvar1 03:54 pm EDT 05/08/15 |
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| Thanks for the reminder of how it's used in the film. I don't find it odd that Liane sings "A Tojours," although I don't think the idea of Liane wanting to be a singer is an improvement from the Liane of the film. What I find odd is that later the same melody is sung with new lyrics in a completely different context. | |
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| Disagree on the look of GIGI | |
| Posted by: | jimvar1 03:18 am EDT 05/08/15 |
| In reply to: | "Gigi" last night - solid, middling show with some charms - Marlo*Manners 05:10 pm EDT 05/07/15 |
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| Of the 7 shows that I saw, I thought this GIGI was the most elegant of all. Costumes might not have been too authentic to Paris 1900; and as you said, Mamita was a little too well-dressed. But what would you have them do with Victoria Clark, when she is a somewhat svelte and well put-together woman? Mak her more frumpy? What role model would that be for Gigi? Besides, she was like her sister, Alicia, ex-courtesans...so she would age well, and still dress as elegantly as her sister. It was only Arthur Freed & Minnelli who made her into the more dowdy Hermione Gingold. But back to this GIGI. Visually, it was sumptuous and while I somewhat hankered for some projections (as the other big-budget musicals seem to be doing), but on second thought, probably didn't need them. Corey Cott is a little too gawky for Gaston but he renders a devastating GIGI! Wasn't too comfortable with Bergasse's choreography for the Maxim's crowd and especially for the lawyers' movements in THE CONTRACT. Why did he have them acting like buffoons in that number -- which I thought was a perfectly competent number showing how seriously they took the whole "mistress" arrangement back then -- with signed contracts no less. Anyway, I thought GIGI 2015 was a lot more elegant and sumptuous than the 1973 version which, while Agnes Moorehead was superb, looked a little dowdy compared to this outing. Finally, am so glad they used and restored the full score (original and new) and that all of Loewe's glorious music has finally come home and together at last. | |
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| re: Disagree on the look of GIGI | |
| Posted by: | Marlo*Manners 09:54 am EDT 05/08/15 |
| In reply to: | Disagree on the look of GIGI - jimvar1 03:18 am EDT 05/08/15 |
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| Actually most of the songs in this 2015 "Gigi" were in the 1973 "Gigi" on Broadway. There is one 1973 new songs "The Earth and Other Minor Things" a solo for Gigi that the 2015 production dispensed with (it's a tuneless dog on the OBCR). "The Letter" and "Toujours" (Liane's operetta solo) seem to be new to the show. But all of these songs sound better sung live onstage than they do on the 1973 OBCR. Also Yvonne de Bray in the 1949 French film is the very quintessence of the matronly French landlady and is not as soigné as Victoria Clark is in the production. (Colette herself would have been consulted about every aspect of that film) Mamita was never on the same level as Alicia as a courtesan - either in looks or income and has long given up pretensions of glamour. Clark needs an apron in the last scene of Act I and some simple shirtwaist with long striped skirt get-ups. Marlo Manners (Lady Barrington) | |
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| re: "Gigi" last night - solid, middling show with some charms | |
| Posted by: | castro 06:59 pm EDT 05/07/15 |
| In reply to: | "Gigi" last night - solid, middling show with some charms - Marlo*Manners 05:10 pm EDT 05/07/15 |
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| This is an excellent assessment of the new GIGI. I also found much to like and much not to like. Victoria Clark and Dee Hoty are both great. I agree that Vanessa Hutchins got better the night went on and that Corey Cott and Howard McGillan are weak. Overall I would recommend that mothers with young daughters should see it. | |
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| re: "Gigi" last night - solid, middling show with some charms | |
| Posted by: | lowwriter 07:12 pm EDT 05/07/15 |
| In reply to: | re: "Gigi" last night - solid, middling show with some charms - castro 06:59 pm EDT 05/07/15 |
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| I really love the songs to Gigi so although this is not a great stage adaptation of the show, I did enjoy hearing the score live on stage and compared to the revival recording, several of the songs are well sung and lively. Cott is too young but I thought his Gigi was very sweet. And I liked the two duets with Clark and McGillin. Clark's Say a Prayer is lovely. Dee Hoty, I agree, is very funny. Hudgens is much too perky and I wish they could have found someone who could have transformed convincingly from a tomboy to a swan. Having her have the last bow in a fancy black gown was a bit ridiculous. Just wish the creative team had tried very hard to find the perfect Gigi. I told my brother than his son's two young girls will really enjoy this. They will probably find Cott appealing. I hope this show does go on the road with a better Gigi and maybe a slightly more mature-looking Gaston. | |
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| re: "Gigi" last night - solid, middling show with some charms | |
| Posted by: | ileen 09:49 pm EDT 05/07/15 |
| In reply to: | re: "Gigi" last night - solid, middling show with some charms - lowwriter 07:12 pm EDT 05/07/15 |
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| I saw it last night too & enjoyed it a bit more than you, but agree with much of what you said. Sarah Hyland (Modern Family) was in the audience & I wondered about her being a replacement for Hudgens. I don't know if she can sing, but she has the right look for the part. | |
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| re: "Gigi" last night - solid, middling show with some charms | |
| Posted by: | mikem 01:41 am EDT 05/08/15 |
| In reply to: | re: "Gigi" last night - solid, middling show with some charms - ileen 09:49 pm EDT 05/07/15 |
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| Sarah Hyland was in Grey Gardens on Broadway, so she must be able to sing. She would be an interesting cast choice. | |
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| re: "Gigi" last night - solid, middling show with some charms | |
| Posted by: | lowwriter 01:02 am EDT 05/08/15 |
| In reply to: | re: "Gigi" last night - solid, middling show with some charms - ileen 09:49 pm EDT 05/07/15 |
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| ileen -- I'm not sure if you were responding to me but I did very much enjoy hearing the score sung live. I've actually seen the show twice because of that. | |
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| re: "Gigi" last night - solid, middling show with some charms | |
| Posted by: | ileen 01:38 am EDT 05/08/15 |
| In reply to: | re: "Gigi" last night - solid, middling show with some charms - lowwriter 01:02 am EDT 05/08/15 |
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| Sorry no, I was responding to the thread creator who was at Wed night's performance as well. | |
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