An American in Paris Robert Fairchild and Leanne Cope in this Christopher Wheeldon production at the Palace Theater. Credit Sara Krulwich/The New York Times
The city of light is ablaze with movement in the rhapsodic new stage adaptation of “An American in Paris†that opened at the Palace Theater on Sunday, directed and choreographed by Christopher Wheeldon, a gifted luminary of the ballet world. This gorgeously danced — and just plain gorgeous — production pays loving tribute to the 1951 movie, to the marriage of music and movement, and to cherished notions about romance that have been a defining element of the American musical theater practically since its inception. Just about everything in this happily dance-drunk show moves with a spring in its step, as if the newly liberated Paris after World War II were an enchanted place in which the laws of gravity no longer applied. Even the elegant buildings on the grand boulevards appear to take flight.
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Musicals based on classic movies, or not-so-classic movies, have become a familiar staple on Broadway. Just last week, “Gigi,†another show based on an Oscar-winning MGM movie set in Paris — also featuring a screenplay by
Jill Paice as Milo Davenport and Robert Fairchild as Jerry Mulligan, who has caught Milo’s eye. Credit Sara Krulwich/The New York Times
Still, unlike the shows directed and choreographed by Twyla Tharp — “Movin’ Out†being the most successful — “An American in Paris†is very much a traditional Broadway musical, with a book by the playwright Craig Lucas that amplifies the movie’s thin story line, mostly to witty and vivifying effect. And while its two radiant leading performers,
Robert Fairchild, airborne, in “An American in Paris.” Credit Sara Krulwich/The New York Times
Jerry Mulligan, the ex-G.I. portrayed by Mr. Fairchild, is an avid witness to the city’s reawakening. An aspiring painter, he drinks in everything he sees with bright, inquisitive eyes, and the joy that springs from his new sense of freedom is translated into ebullient movement. A principal dancer with New York City Ballet (who, incidentally, is used to dancing to Gershwin in George Balanchine’s “Who Caresâ€), Mr. Fairchild has exemplary classical technique, but he also possesses some of the earthy sensuality that Gene Kelly brought to his dancing. (Nor does it hurt that he’s movie-star handsome.)
Jerry’s turns and leaps gain velocity when he captures glimpses of a beautiful brunette, Lise Dassin (Ms. Cope), slipping quietly through the streets of Paris with a concentrated expression. By coincidence — O.K., by sheer contrivance — Jerry and Lise are brought together when Jerry’s pal, the aspiring composer Adam Hochberg (a dryly funny
Robert Fairchild and Leanne Cope in “An American in Paris.” Credit Sara Krulwich/The New York Times
As in the movie, Lise’s reluctance to admit her attraction to Jerry stems from her allegiance to another man to whom she is attached: Henri Baurel, the heir to a textile fortune who secretly aspires to be a nightclub singer. (Just about all the characters in the show aspire to something, which may be viewed as a beloved showbiz cliché or an expression of the spirit of hope sweeping over Europe after the dark days of war.)
Henri is portrayed by Max von Essen, a gifted actor with several Broadway credits who here gives a hard-earned breakthrough performance of great sensitivity and charm. Although Mr. Fairchild and Ms. Cope have fine voices, Mr. von Essen’s rich tenor is in another class. In one of the splashier numbers, “I’ll Build a Stairway to Paradise,†a small jazz club blooms into Radio City Music Hall, replete with a high-kicking chorus line, as Henri’s fantasies carry him away. (Mr. von Essen, who uses a French accent, like the other actors portraying Parisians, at times brought to mind the great French-Canadian tenor Léopold Simoneau.)
Mr. Lucas’s book can sometimes get a little jambon-handed, if you will, when it insists on giving some ballast to Lerner’s featherweight story. Henri’s mother, played with droll imperiousness by Veanne Cox, asks if perhaps Henri’s hesitance to propose to Lise may derive from his homosexuality. Jerry, Adam and Henri engage in the occasional argument about whether art should reflect life’s darkness or dissipate it.
But while these elements occasionally feel like dutiful attempts to inject contemporary gravitas into a nostalgically romantic musical, they certainly do not bring this airborne show down to earth for long. Mr. Wheeldon’s buoyant dances and the heat-generating performances infuse the evening with the headlong energy of youth in the process of self-discovery, through love, through art or, for those left without dance partners when the curtain falls, through loss.
But why conclude on a blue note? “An American in Paris†weds music and movement, song and story with such exhilarating brio that you may find your own feet fidgeting under your seat before it’s over, and your heart alight with a longing to be swept up in the dance.
A theater review on Monday about “An American in Paris,” at the Palace Theater in Manhattan, referred incorrectly to the tenor Léopold Simoneau, to whom Max von Essen, who plays Henri Baurel, was compared. He was French-Canadian, not French.
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Review: 'An American in Paris,' a Romance of Song and Step - New York Times
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