Reviews 2010
Reviews 2010
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created by Eric Blau and Mort Shuman,
directed by Stafford Arima
Stratford Festival, Tom Patterson Theatre, Stratford
June 11-September 25, 2010
“Brent Carver is Alive and Well in ‘Brel’”
When “Jacques Brel Is Alive and Well and Living in Paris” first premiered in New York in 1968, the statement of the title was still true. The Belgian songwriter died at age 49 in 1978, but luckily the musical revue created by Eric Blau and Mort Shuman still helps his name and music to live on. “Brel” truly is only a revue and not a musical. The present version now playing at the Stratford Festival consists of 27 songs chosen by director Stafford Arima and does not recreate the original 1968 playlist or any other. Arima’s version has many similarities to it but excludes some items in order to include such great songs as “My Childhood”, “Song for Old Lovers” and the famous “Ne me quitte pas”.
The revue is sung by four singers--some solo, some in various combinations-- accompanied by an onstage band of four musicians. There is no plot or any linking dialogue or introductions--simply the songs themselves--and it is a testament to the power of Brel’s work that this makes for such a powerful evening. If there is a problem with the Stratford production it is that four singer present the songs in completely different styles. This might be thought to provide variety, but in fact one one of the singers, Brent Carver, has found the style that best suits the material.
Each of Brel’s songs is a kind of narrative monologue created for a specific character. As the song progresses the character’s true nature or real preoccupation becomes increasingly obvious until it is fully revealed at the end. The singer thus must be fully inside the character Brel creates and be able to project the character’s interior conflict even before he or she enunciates what it is. Carver is simply as master of this and his interpretations stand head and shoulders above those of the other three singers. This is does not benefit the show as a whole but it the fault of casting and the the direction, not of Carver.
It is impossible to imagine a better presentation of Brel than Carver’s. He is the only one for the four to get fully inside of the character singing song. He captures all the poignant nostalgia of “My Childhood (Mon Enfance)”, the humorous bravado shifting into doubt of “Bachelor's Dance (La bourrée du célibataire)” and the mounting anger of the famous “Amsterdam”. He is even able to put across the love song “Marieke” even though it is mostly in Flemish.
Mike Nadajewski, as the other male singer, has an excellent voice but is far too histrionic by comparison. The wild gestures he uses in the love song “Fanette” and in the anti-war song “Next (Au suivant)” undermine rather than enhance their effect. While Carver captures the interiority that seems to be Brel’s essence, Nadajewski is all exteriority. This tendency is tamed when the two sing together in “The Middle Class (Les bourgeois)”, where two friends age from youthful disdain of staid, older people until they realize they have become those people themselves. Nadajewski’s finest moment alone is probably “Funeral Tango (Le tango funèbre”, where as a dead man watching his own funeral, his character's gestures are the most minimal.
Jewelle Blackman has a lustrously dusky voice that is a real pleasure to listen to but, like Nadajewski, she seems to be outside Brel’s songs performing them for the audience rather than entering inside their characters. This is most noticeable in “My Death (La mort)”, where Blackman appears accountably upbeat for such a depressing subject until the very end. Her high point is undoubtably the showpiece “Carousel (La valse à mille temps”, in which the song’s tempo keeps increasing until the words come out at an incredibly rather speed. In this case, the technical virtuosity of the song and Blackman’s approach perfectly coincide.
Least effective of the four is Nathalie Nadon. She has a lovely soprano voice, but for unknown reasons seems disengaged from the others and from the characters of her songs. She sings the angry anti-war song “Sons of... (Fils de...)” just before Carver sings “Amsterdam”. Both songs are built on what is called the “Brelian crescendo” in which the character’s anger becomes more intense and defiant as the song progresses. While Carver carefully gradates his singing from pent-up emotion to explosive expression, Nadon keeps her singing on the same level throughout and never acts out the increasing emotion the song calls for both in its words and musical structure. Her one success is in with what may be Brel’s most famous song “Ne me quitte pas”, sung in French, where she for one does become engaged with the song.
Director Arima does utilize the full Tom Patterson stage by having the singers as a quartet create various symmetrical movement patterns as they sing. He tries to introduce shadow play on a backlit sheet for “Brussels” but this doesn’t really work since can be seem only by those in the centre section. He also has the musicians occasionally mingle with the singers onstage--George Meanwell when on guitar, and Anna Atkinson when on violin playing with Blackman who besides singing also plays the violin. Using arrangements by Rick Fox, the accompaniment by Meanwell, Atkinson, who also plays accordion, Luc Michaud and Laura Burton is excellent.
As a cabaret show, “Brel” really needs no production design at all. Designer Katherine Lubienski has the back wall covered with a dark red curtain for the introductory song by the quartet “Marathon”. then is is whisked back to reveal a back wall plastered with old photos and playbills and a large photo of Brel himself. I assume Lubienski is trying to suggest a songs sung front of a curtain followed by the curtain opening, but the effect does not work in the context of the Patterson’s configuration. Arima’s idea of having the singers use a clunky 1940s-style mike for the second half of the show, does make sense since the the singers are already miked and have done well enough without a symbolic mike in the first half. The most important scenic element is Steven Hawkins’s highly inventive lighting that not only enhances the mood of each song but creates different playing areas on the stage like the rectangle in which Nathalie is entrapped in “Old Folks (Les vieux)”.
Fans of Brent Carver will have to realize that Carver is involved in only a quarter of the songs. The energy level rises every time he takes the stage making you wish (unfairly) that he could sing every song. Since he does not, “Brel” is an uneven show that does demonstrate Brel’s genius, but leaves you wishing for a more effective production.
©Christopher Hoile
Note: This review is a Stage Door exclusive.
Photo: Nathalie Nadon, Brent Carver, Mike Nadajewski and Jewelle Blackman. ©David Hou.
2010-07-18
Jacques Brel Is Alive and Well and Living in Paris