Last Friday I watched the first night of previews of the new Broadway musical “An American in Paris”, based on the 1951 movie with Gene Kelly and with music by George and Ira Gershwin, which won 6 Academy Awards. Since the previews will last one month, there is a lot of time to make changes and adjustments to the musical and, in my opinion, they should do that ASAP.
Set in Paris right after World War II, it tells the story of Jerry Mulligan (Robert Fairchild), an American soldier who decides to stay in Paris and falls in love in Lise Dassin (Leanne Cope), a dancer. Little did he know that he would end up being friends with two other men who have also fallen in love with her – Adam Hochberg (Brandon Uranowitz), a composer, and Henri Baurel (Max von Essen), whose mother convinces him that he should propose to Lise. So, unlike the movie, here she has 3 suitors, not 2.
The leading actors are professional dancers, both working with Ballet companies, and the director Christopher Wheeldon, who also is the choreographer, works professionally with Ballet too. So it becomes quite clear why the play has so many dance numbers. As an example, the first 10 minutes are just filled with dancing, with no lines or lyrics whatsoever and, as a result, I felt like it took a long time for the story to actually begin. It’s true that the movie also had long dance numbers, but I also felt that they were too long and stop the action. The ballet numbers are beautiful, but if I wanted to see a lot of ballet, I would go watch a ballet presentation, and not a Broadway musical.
There were minor issues, such as problems with a microphone of one of the actors, a set light and an intermission longer than expected (30 minutes). But all these problems can be easily fixed before the official opening. I do hope, however, that they change the structure of the play because, even though it lasted 2 hours (without the intermission), it felt much longer for me.
