Gigi – Neil Simon Theatre, New York

Vanessa Hudgens and Corey Cott in Gigi at the Neil Simon Theatre, New York. Picture: Margot Schulman

Gigi continues at the Neil Simon Theatre, New York.

Star rating: 2 stars ★ ★

Despite his legendary Gallic charm, I always found something discomforting about Maurice Chevalier, as the old Parisian roué Honoré in the movie Gigi, singing “Thank Heaven for Little Girls”, while eyeing the young femmes playing in the park. In the new Broadway reworking of the stage musical based on the film, the song is taken from Honoré and given to Gigi’s grandmother Mamita and grand aunt Alicia, as they debate their hopes for Gigi’s future. Alicia is training Gigi to be an accomplished courtesan, following in the family tradition, while Mamita is only concerned that she find true love and happiness. The transposition gets rid of the creepiness, but it doesn’t make much sense either. The song loses its point, like much of this unengaging revival.

Gigi, as a stage musical, first came to Broadway in 1973. (A straight play of the story, taken from a novel by the French Colette, opened on Broadway in 1951, giving Audrey Hepburn her first burst of stardom.) With its book and lyrics by Alan Jay Lerner and music by Frederick Loewe, the production followed by some 15 years the pair’s acclaimed movie musical Gigi, which won nine Oscars. The Broadway version was hardly as successful, running 103 performances. However, with several new songs added, it did win a Tony for Best Original Score.

The current production, which played Washington, D.C.’s Kennedy Center before hitting Broadway, features an adaptation by UK dramatist Heidi Thomas and direction by Eric Schaeffer. Arguably, its main raison d’etre is the casting of Vanessa Hudgens in the title role. Hudgens, who won oodles of teenage fandom from Disney’s trio of High School Musical films, has a bold, brassy voice and a smile that beams like a headlight. But, with a plethora of cutesy gestures and giggles, her Gigi comes across as a girl just emerging from pre-pubescence rather than a budding woman.

The script describes her as “coming of age three months ago” (whatever that means exactly, it would seem to make her a bit older than in the film), but it’s next to impossible to believe. In contrast, several years are shaved off of Gaston, Honoré’s nephew and the playboy who is to awaken to Gigi’s womanly magnetism. As played by Corey Cott, he’s a spoiled rich kid. When he quarrels and quibbles with Gigi, it‘s like – guess what? – two high schoolers, somewhat irritating ones, in fact, whose raging hormones have them battling away before they realise they’re meant to fall into each other’s arms.

Cott, it should be noted, delivers a strong rendition of the title song, but it seems totally out of sync with his otherwise callow characterisation. Sadly lost is the movie’s thrilling depiction of a man of the world being captivated to do the right thing by an enchanting young woman.

Presumably under Schaeffer’s guidance, that sense of wrongness is felt elsewhere in the production, which is peopled with some well-seasoned Broadway names. Dee Hoty’s Aunt Alicia is robotically brittle. In what appears to be a determined attempt to be affable, Howard McGillin’s Honoré seems to have sadly misplaced his joie de vivre. (It’s a misfortune that seems to afflict Josh Bergasse’s energetic but somewhat mechanical choreography.)

Victoria Clark’s Mamita exudes some genuine human warmth, but the character is oddly given the song, ‘Say a Prayer’, which was wistfully sung by Gigi in the film. As delivered by Clark in her powerful soprano, it becomes an 11 o’clock number of operatic proportions, further throwing the problematic proceedings off balance. Steffanie Leigh, ‘also starring’ as Gaston’s grasping mistress, Liane, is more clownish than sexy.

On the plus side, there is Derek Mclane’s dramatic set design dominated by a huge, curving Art Nouveau staircase, and lots of glittery gowns, designed by Catharine Zuber to look particularly luscious under Natasha Katz’s lighting. (The same cannot be said for the ungainly beachwear worn by Gigi and the gang when Gaston treats them all to a seaside trip to Trouville.)

Of course, there’s the buoyant Lerner and Loewe score, with its generous helping of memorable tunes, from ‘The Night They Invented Champagne’ to ‘I Remember It Well’. Some of them, however, sound surprisingly bland, without the proper characterisations airing them.

Interestingly, Gigi is one of two reshaped Alan Jay Lerner Paris-based screenplays hitting Broadway this season. The other is the considerably more entrancing redo of An American in Paris. Well, as they might even say in Paris, you can’t win ’em all.

Ron Cohen

Readers may also be interested in:

An American in Paris – Palace Theatre, New York – Review