An American in Paris

music by George Gershwin, lyrics by Ira Gershwin, book by Craig Lucas

seen at the Dominion Theatre on 6 May 2017

Christopher Wheeldon directs and choreographs this stage version of the 1951 film, with set and costume designs by Bob Crowley. The lead actors are Robert Fairchild as Jerry Mulligan, the American soldier cum artist who stays in Paris having missed his train home, Leanne Cope as Lise Dassin, a talented ballet dancer with whom he falls in love, David Seadon-Young as Adam Hochberg, and Amrican composer and wounded soldier also in love with Lise, and Haydn Oakley as Henri Baurel, son of the family who has sheltered Lise during the Nazi occupation of Paris. Henri's parents are played by Jane Asher and Julian Forsyth, and Zoë Rainey plays Miles Davenport, a rich American benefactor.

The story opens with the liberation of Paris, and follows the fortunes of Lise and the three young men Jerry, Adam and Henri, all of whom are in love with her (though there is a strong implication that Henri is really gay), and all of whom, though they are friends thrown together by chance, fail to talk about their love except in anonymous terms so that none of them knows that each is pursuing the same girl. Lise, in turn, feel duty bound to accept Henri's rather lack-lustre suit, but no more than duty compels her. She admits to Jerry that she has strong feelings for him but will not explain what prevents her from accepting him.

There is plenty of room here for comic misunderstanding and confusion, but in this version the emotional stakes are given more poignant weight by two things: the back story of the Baurel's protection of Lise (a Jewish girl) during the occupation, a dangerous secret which the parents have become too adept at concealing (hence their rather callous appearance as opportunistic followers of power and money); and the fact that the narrator musician Adam is also in love with Lise, so that even if romantic convention means that Jerry and Lise will be happy in the end, while Henri will evidently pursue his own performing aspirations in America with unexpected parental blessings, another sympathetic character will be inevitably disappointed.

Added to this is the marvellous music and enjoyable, witty lyrics from the Gershwin brothers, Several of these gain dramatic point when placed within the context of the play, in particular when sung by more than one character. When all three young men sing 'S'wonderful, s'marvellous' what seems on the surface a charming romantic song gains extra depth because we know that the three appear to be affirming each other's good fortune, but we also know that they are at cross-purposes. Likewise, when two mismatched couples (Jerry and Milo, Henri and Lise) sing 'Who Cares?', each pair clearly in separate places, the tensions and potential for lifelong disappointment are economically and wonderfully explored in counterpoint.

The sets, indeed the whole production design, evoke the Parisian streets and apartments with a marvellous fluid ease as various screens are wheeled across the stage catching ingenious computer projections as they pass, and various silhouettes are likewise 'painted' by computer on the backdrops. This allows the whole performance to maintain momentum with no clumsy scene changes, and reflects the rather dreamlike atmosphere of the story.

The dance sequences are as important to the overall effect as the spoken and sung parts, and these are also just as enjoyable. It's a great production of a classic musical, well adapted to the stage, with the optimism of new possibilities given extra credence by the acknowledgement of darker times just past and the imperfections and disappointments inevitable even in the sunniest present.