| "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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| Next: | re: "Gigi" last night - solid, middling show with some charms - AlanScott 12:33 pm EDT 05/08/15 |
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