There's Been a Change in You

Gigi at the Neil Simon Theatre

Vanessa Hudgens in Gigi.

            Why revive Gigi?  It has a ravishing score, certainly, by Lerner and Loewe at their very best, and a sterling reputation—for the original 1958 film more than the 1973 Broadway staging, which ran less than four months—as a beautiful and nuanced look at the courtesan trade in turn-of-the-century Paris.  There is ample space for celebrity casting and new lush orchestrations, and the City of Light brings in theatergoers like nobody’s business (as An American in Paris would attest).  But if you’re not going to do Gigi right, you shouldn’t do it at all.  And the new production at the Neil Simon Theatre, with a revamped book by the confused Heidi Thomas and backwards direction by Eric Schaffer, is all wrong.

            First off, there’s the casting.  Condemning a near-perfect score like this one to the agony of stunt casting is cruel.  Casting Vanessa Hudgens as the groomed, recently-of-age courtesan Gigi Alvarez is downright criminal.  Ms. Hudgens is a fine singer, if you go in for the identical Disney sopranos that seem to be the only voice type available to actresses of a certain age.  But she couldn’t act if you put a gun to her head.  Her borderline robotic line recitation and her inexpert movements, less controlled than those of the most rambunctious child actor, make for a production that’s excruciating whenever the title character is on stage.  That’s a bad start.

            Then there’s the fiddling about with the book.  Heidi Thomas, who created “Call the Midwife” and has an admirable (but, in this case, ill-advised) feminist streak about her, tries to make Gigi a more self-sustaining, stronger character.  The obvious changes are made—Gigi now makes the decisions about her relationship with sugar heir Gaston Lachaille (Corey Cott) instead of letting him make them for her; Gigi’s grandmother (Victoria Clarke) and great-aunt (Dee Hoty) now sing “Thank Heaven for Little Girls” instead of the Chevalier character, Honore Lachaille (Howard McGillin) (which completely misses the point of the song, but whatever).  If this worked, it would make for a wonderful change to the show—indeed, even in the film, Leslie Caron’s Gigi was always something of an enigma as far as her motivation went—but Ms. Thomas’s writing is not even significant enough to be obvious.  Her adaptation of Alan Jay Lerner’s ’73 book is about as thrilling as lukewarm water.  With a series of cuts and additions so disastrously dexterous they’re hard to follow, Ms. Thomas carves the heart out of the story and hands over its weakly smiling corpse for us to admire.  The songs are so beautiful they at least keep us watching, but Ms. Thomas’s listless dialogue often seems to be marking time between them.  Mr. Lerner’s legacy deserves so much better.

            But it’s the directorial choices that come off as most confusing.  Mr. Schaffer (he of the most recent Follies revival) throws us off right away with weird staging choices—who plays cards standing up?—then finishes the job by doing his level best to destroy a magnificent score.  His choral arrangements are unintelligible, and, along with the misguided orchestrator, August Eriksmoen, he slows down the faster songs—most notably “I Remember it Well” and “I’m Glad I’m Not Young Anymore”—to something like half their time signature.  I don’t know who told Mr. Schaffer this show’s problem is that it’s not slow enough (it runs two and a half hours) but whoever did so should be immediately sacked, along with most of the creative team.

            There are elements of this show that, painfully, remind us what it could have been.  The set design, by Derek McLane, quite beautifully evokes the Eiffel Tower, even if changes in scenery are sometimes awkwardly incorporated.  But most notably, there’s Corey Cott as the aforementioned Gaston, who, though distractingly young (another masterstroke by Ms. Thomas—making Gigi older and Gaston younger until their romance is completely uninteresting), is extremely talented.  His delivery of Lerner and Loewe’s spoken songs in the style of Rex Harrison like “She is Not Thinking of Me” is masterful, and he’s very funny where the book allows him to be.  He even restrains his incredible dancing ability (he was the original Broadway lead in Newsies) for the sake of the character.  In a few years Mr. Cott would make an excellent Henry Higgins.  But when one watches a performance and can think of nothing but what the performer could do given a better chance, it doesn’t give you hope.  It just depresses you.