When the Thin Frenchman Sings, It's Over
The musical review with the ungainly name – Jacques Brel is Alive and Well and Living in Paris – is closing Marin Theatre Company’s season with a different kind of theatrical presentation. This program is all music -- singing, dancing, and a three-piece band -- but it isn’t a musical. Brel (for simplicity and ease of typing, we’ll use this abbreviation for the next few paragraphs) is a review of more than 20 songs by the composer of the same name, most of them translated into English by American poet Eric Blau and lyricist Mort Shuman. The songs are arranged, more or less, to describe a variety of sorrows, such as unrequited love, boredom or bereavement, and are laced with wry comments on the human condition.
There is no story, but there is action and drama. When this show premiered off Broadway in 1968, it ran four years. Many of Jacques Brel’s recorded songs were also picked up and re-recorded by American artists. In 2006, Brel was revived in New York and ran another year.
The music is presented on a multi-use set with a silvery stage curtain in front of the stage and a curtained screen behind. At various points, black-and-white video appears behind the rear curtain, which is never opened. A three-piece band with an appealing French sound is tucked into the rear of the stage.
Brel is launched by The Devil’s explanation of conditions for life on Earth followed by a desperately jolly “Marathon,” and continuing with the full cast’s summary of the bitter “Alone.” Then an aging gigolo ponders his career and admits that he still longs to be “Cute, cute, cute in a stupid-ass way.” Four singers line up to explain the excitement and anguish of waiting, bouquets in hand, for “Madeleine,” a Godot-like girlfriend who never appears. Two participants in “Bachelor’s Dance” outline the qualities of their ideal bride, while another, with waves rolling on the screen behind, laments the loss of “Fanette.”
If the audience doesn’t grasp by now that this is not An American in Paris, here comes “Le Moribond,” which we can all recognize in its Rod McKuen translation, “Seasons in the Sun.” A few numbers more, and “Sons Of” whirls away in a manic waltz: “Sons of tycoons, sons of the farms, all of them running away from your arms.”
But in all this world-weariness, there are also gems.The second act opens with a full-screen view of a tearful Jacques Brel singing in French “Ne Me Quitte Pas” (I think this means, “Don’t leave me.”) There are also two songs in this segment reflecting Brel’s Belgian nationality, “Brussels,” sung in English, and “Marieke,” a show-stopper in Flemish, powerfully rendered by Alison Ewing, who sings just as beautifully in French.
Brel’s songs and style are so evocative of Edith Piaf’s that some have wondered if they ever worked together. There seems to be no evidence of that. Piaf died five years before Brel’s first stage success. There were some similarities in their lives, however. Piaf started out as a street kid and used a lot of drugs; she died in October at age 47 and is buried in Paris. Brel started out as the son of a cardboard manufacturer, became a chain smoker and contracted lung cancer. He died in October at 49 and is buried in the Marquesas Islands. Both Brel and Piaf have been recorded over and over and often appear the same albums.
In Marin Theatre Company’s Brel, three other fine vocalists besides Ewing – Noel Anthony, Robert Brewer, and Kristin Stokes – present the songs, while Steve Sanders, Matt Montgomery and Jascha Jacobsen create the French sound on a variety of instruments.
Cassie Beck arranged the imaginative choreography, Callie Floor designed the costumes, Erin Gilley presented the rear-screen video. (This is almost hypnotic in its finale, “Carousel.”) Director Kent Nicholson pulled together a multi-media musical review with energy and style and made an imaginative finish to MTC’s ’07- ’08 season.
Jacques Brel is Alive and Well and Living in Paris will play at the Marin Theatre Company in Mill Valley through June 15. Performances are every day but Monday, with matinees every Sunday throughout the run. Special events are scheduled both before and after the performances, and special prices are available for seniors and for selected weekdays. For complete information, see the website, www.marintheatre.org, and for ticket orders, call 388-5208.