'An American in Paris' at RBTL has depth and dance
How do you turn an iconic, light-hearted — some might even say cheesy — 1950s movie into a satisfying Broadway show? The challenge lured playwright Craig Lucas to An American in Paris, the dance-based musical which will be on tour at Rochester Broadway Theatre League's Auditorium Theatre from March 20 to 25.
His solution was not to take the easy way out.
“I’ve never understood taking a work of art, especially one that’s beloved, and trying to translate it into another medium intact,” Lucas says. “That’s like taking a big stone house and making it out of Q-tips.”
Lucas has ample experience in figuring out how to adapt stories from one medium to another, turning Q-tips into something beautiful. Several of his works, including the book of the musical The Light in the Piazza and the screenplay to The Secret Lives of Dentists, were adapted from novellas. He has also adapted his own plays to film, most notably his 1988 play Prelude to a Kiss, which became a 1992 film starring Alec Baldwin and Meg Ryan.
One of his tasks with adapting An American in Paris for the stage was figuring out how to make a story with early 1950s sensibilities compelling for contemporary audiences.
The original 1951 Academy-Award-winning movie tells the story of Jerry Mulligan (played by Gene Kelly), a former G.I. who decides to stay in Paris after the war and falls in love with a woman named Lise. Lucas was interested in how the piece “dances around and away from a number of serious implications.”
He had several questions about the characters that were left vague or unclear in the movie. He suspects the movie was “trying desperately not to alarm the audience about what actually took place in this war.”
For example: “I didn’t really understand what was motivating Jerry’s decision to stay behind in Paris after the war. Not that Paris isn’t an attractive place to be, but it so happens that at the time of liberation it was also a very traumatized, economically disadvantaged place.”
His solution? To explore the possibility that Jerry’s reason for staying was related to post-war trauma, and to explore how the other characters were haunted by the war.
Another question regarded Lise and her reasons for hiding. Lucas concluded that “Lise was almost certainly a Jew and not, as the movie rather laughably tries to account for, ‘a child of resistance fighters.’ ”
“I was excited that an old narrative with songs from the earlier century might be examined through what we now know about the occupation of France, the effects of Nazis, and the efforts of the resistance to overcome Hitler.”
That may sound heavy, but remember that this is An American in Paris, inspired by George Gershwin’s symphonic piece. The show incorporates Gershwin’s classical compositions as well as musical theater comedy songs written by George and Ira Gershwin, which tend to be light-hearted and romantic.
While the show includes classic Gershwin hits like “S’Wonderful,” “I Got Rhythm” and “I’ll Build a Stairway to Paradise,” Lucas says part of the fun was looking for more obscure tunes.
“I’m very fond of ‘Fidgety Feet’ in act two, since it’s a song most people don’t know. And we were able to do something very interesting with it about anxiety.”
While the music helps tell the story, a lot of the narrative is told through dance — more so than the average Broadway musical.
Dance is such an important part of the show that Jerry Mulligan is played by a professional ballet dancer. McGee Maddox, who was a principal dancer for the National Ballet of Canada, is making his musical theater debut with this piece.
“I have to focus on two extra disciplines every night,” Maddox says. Although he has taken acting and singing lessons, this is his first time incorporating them into his dance career. “I have to go through an entire evening pulling out all the stops.”
The magic of the show’s dance largely stems from British choreographer/director Christopher Wheeldon. The opportunity to work with Wheeldon was a huge draw for Lucas, a great admirer of his work. “Ballet has become a more rarified language. I think Chris Wheeldon’s use of it has expanded its ability to communicate certain things.”
The two worked in close collaboration. “We spent literally years storyboarding, if you will, what could be told without words to this great music,” Lucas says. “And each of the ballets that he created — the opening sequence, the end of the first act, and the final ballet — serves a very strong narrative purpose.”
Although the story addresses the aftermath of a dark time in history, Lucas says he aimed to stay true to the optimistic nature of the movie. “It’s essentially a story about moving out of the darkness, into the light.”
If You Go:
What: An American in Paris.
When: March 20-25.
Where: RBTL Theatre Auditorium. 885 East Main St.
Tickets: $38-$83. Order online at ticketmaster.com, by calling (800) 745-3000, or at the Box Office.