A shower of soap bubbles descends upon the audience at the finale of the pretty and pleasant revival of the musical “Gigi” that opened at the Neil Simon Theater on Wednesday. The gentle downpour is meant to evoke the fizz in a glass of Champagne, the delights of which have been celebrated in one of the bounciest songs from the score by Alan Jay Lerner and Frederick Loewe.
But it inadvertently brought to mind how thoroughly the musical, about a young woman being groomed for a life as a courtesan in turn-of-the-20th-century Paris, has been scrubbed of anything even remotely naughty or distasteful. In this squeaky clean version of the material, Gigi’s potential future as a demimondaine — that’s French for high-end prostitute — is alluded to in such delicately vague terms that no parent chaperoning a tween fan of the show’s star, Vanessa Hudgens, of “High School Musical” renown, will have much explaining to do after the curtain has fallen.
You probably remember the most uncomfortable passage in the froufrou-bedecked 1958 film, which won a hefty nine Oscars including best picture (and which was also more treacly than the Colette story on which it was based). Recall Maurice Chevalier, playing the narrator, the suave silver fox Honoré Lachaille, singing “Thank Heaven for Little Girls” as he strolls through the Bois de Boulogne, eyeing young girls romping in the park.
As the French say, eeck.
The current production, directed by Eric Schaeffer, features a new version of the Lerner book adapted by Heidi Thomas (“Call the Midwife”). No doubt leading the list of Ms. Thomas’s chores was removing this song from the mouth of an elderly gentleman. It has now been cleverly bleached of lechery, reassigned to two female characters, Gigi’s grandmother, Mamita (Victoria Clark), and her Aunt Alicia (Dee Hoty), becoming an innocuous elegy for the fleeting nature of young girlhood.
Other small adjustments have also been made. Gigi is now 18, not 15. Gaston Lachaille (Corey Cott), the sugar millionaire who begins as an avuncular admirer of this pert teenager and gradually falls in love with her as she blooms into womanhood, seems to be just a year or two older than Gigi (and scarcely an inch taller), making their relationship more akin to the romance depicted in, well, “High School Musical,” than the version in the original story or in the movie, where Louis Jourdan fell for Leslie Caron. And when Gaston finally realizes that the honorable thing to do is to marry Gigi, not keep her as a mistress, he proposes himself, instead of asking her grandmother for her hand.
FROM THE ARCHIVE | NOV. 14, 1973
Original Review: 'Gigi" (1973)
Clive Barnes's review of the musical on Broadway at the Uris Theater.
The New York Times
See full article in TimesMachine
These and other minor changes smartly align the material with our more enlightened times, when a lighthearted musical comedy about a girl being trained to trade sex for creature comforts would naturally raise eyebrows. What the production’s creators cannot do, unfortunately, is plump up the thin story or elevate the quality of the score, which doesn’t rank among Lerner and Loewe’s greatest. (The production includes songs from the movie as well as several added when “Gigi” first appeared — and flopped — on Broadway in 1973.)
There is plenty of scrumptious eye candy to feast on. The set, by Derek McLane, evokes the airy elegance of the Grand Palais in Paris; Catherine Zuber provides a sumptuous array of gowns for the female characters (they are actually more tastefully soignée than the rococo creations of Cecil Beaton for the movie); the lighting designer, Natasha Katz, bathes it all in lush splashes of color, with the Parisian twilight and evening evoked with particular grace.
And the cast, with one unfortunate exception, makes the most of the material. Ms. Clark, a Tony winner for “The Light in the Piazza,” brings her customary warmth to Mamita, entrusted with Gigi’s upbringing while the child’s mother pursues a semiproper career on the opera stage. Among the most famous songs in the score is “I Remember It Well,” a duet for Mamita and Honoré, Gaston’s uncle and Mamita’s onetime lover, here played with the requisite gallantry as well as a touch of virility by Howard McGillin. This song, in which she keeps gently correcting his erring memories of their time together, maintains its wistful charm and humor. Later, Ms. Clark gets to reveal the bloom in her voice on “Say a Prayer,” originally sung by Gigi in the movie.
Ms. Hoty’s Aunt Alicia, a former courtesan herself who spies potential in Gigi, is marked by an elegant hauteur and a touch of dry humor. (Among the references to Gigi’s possible future is Mamita’s delicate observation, in a conversation with Alicia: “I do know that the women in our family don’t marry, as a rule.”) As Gaston, Mr. Cott nicely suggests the chronic restlessness of a rich and handsome young man bored beyond his years, and he sings with bright, clear tone.
Making her Broadway debut, Ms. Hudgens dashes around the stage with perky impetuousness, looking smart in her schoolgirl uniforms and, later, as chic as a runway gazelle in sleek gowns. Her characterization comes to life when Gigi pours her heart into her throat, whether in petulant girlish complaint about the Parisians’ obsession with l’amour or in a short but touching song in which Gigi reconsiders her decision to decline the opportunity to become Gaston’s latest lover.
But in between songs, Ms. Hudgens’s performance flattens into two dimensions, at most. Gigi’s spunkiness is there to see, but her vulnerability and ardor are mostly missing in action. The actress has energy to spare, but the performance is emotionally vacant, a major problem for a show by its nature heavy on decorative atmosphere and stereotypical evocations of gay Paree during the belle époque. (Joshua Bergasse’s capable but unenthralling choreography inevitably includes a cancan.)
For the musical to inspire excitement, or even affection, we need to feel that the romantic fate of a young woman of vibrant heart and spirit hangs in the balance. Despite her poise, beauty and undeniable hard work, Ms. Hudgens’s Gigi feels glossy but empty at the core. Sort of like a soap bubble.
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