The singly named DuSoleil (Drew Gehling) is a workaholic Parisian clerk at an anonymous office who yearns for Isabelle (Christiani Pitts), a married woman sharing their Montmartre neighborhood. After office hours—and perhaps before—he skulks around the fancy home in which she’s confined by her older husband. There, she perches in a corner window longing for a true love.
Nothing good comes to them until the lucky but confusing day when DuSoleil discovers—without his knowing how he acquired it—the ability to pass through walls as well as, by the way, the ability to pass his hand through glass to steal, at one point, a necklace to give a local lady of the night (Rachel York). While a chorus of eight varied 18th arrondissement denizens, including the disillusioned street walker, sing about the ill-starred romance, DuSoleil and Isabelle carry on their as yet unfulfilled desires,
Eventually, DuSoleil musters the nerve to pass through Isabelle’s home-prison walls. Although she instantly declares he’s not what she’s been hoping for, she slowly realizes he’s the now famous Passe-Partout. As of then it’s beaucoup de ooh-la-la, until, that is, things don’t precisely end as the lovers wish.
The bittersweet tale has become Amour, a musical run up in 1997 by the marvelous composer Michel Legrand and librettist-lyricist Didier van Clauwelaert for a Paris production. It’s been translated by Jeremy Sams and was presented on Broadway in 2002. Now it’s being streamed in an all-new virtual version.
It’s only fair to report that after its initial bow Amour won France’s Prix Molière. (Might that have been at least partially due to it’s Molière-esque plot?) When it played Broadway in 2002—with Malcolm Gets as the wall-breaker and Melissa Errico as the walled-in wife—it received five Tony nominations, winning none. It’s also necessary to report that Amour is adapted from a 1943 short story, Le Passe-Muraille, by Marcel Aymé, who habitually hung out in Montmartre and had a pronounced gift for whimsy.
All that reported, however, it’s a reviewer’s unpleasant duty to report further that Amour is, at best, a so-so musical where the wall-passing is perhaps a metaphor for the difficulties of getting long-lasting love to materialize. It’s a sung-through affair, which means the recently late Legrand (1932-2019) keeps the melodies coming for about 90 minutes without rising very often, if at all, to the heights he so often did in his long career, most frequently when Marilyn and Alan Berman were supplying the words. Sams’s lyrics serve their purpose and feature compulsive rhymes (barrister/embarrassed-er, the standout) as they wend their way.
There’s nothing wrong with the performing, although there’s little to distinguish it, either. Gehling and Pitts give the proceedings a worthy try. Others given solo turns include York doing extremely well with a plangent hooker’s ditty and Derrick Baskin as a Place du Tertre painter confessing his works are no more than second-rate. As DuSoleil co-workers waking up to his new appeal, Kara Lindsay and Jennifer Sánchez have fun.
The Amour look is what’s becoming standard streaming fare: Performers videoed separately and superimposed on backgrounds and each other. The technique has the effect of sometimes three-dimensional and just as often flatly two-dimensional. Too bad that with this necessary formatting, the lovers DuSoleil and Isabelle are unable to show affection by putting their arms around one another—and forget passionate kissing. Director Meg Fofonoff must have worried about that for some while before accepting the inevitable. Costumer Jennifer Lynn Tremblay, and music director Sean Mayer, with small band, acquit themselves well.
Possibly, the true Amour appeal lies in the incorporated backdrops. They add up to a Montmartre travelogue, and will be like food and drink to stateside viewers kept from visiting their adored Paris during the pandemic. They’ll serve, too, as an introduction and irresistible lure to travelers who haven’t yet seen Paree.
Among these vistas, three are special magnets. The first is the street where Isabelle resides. Is it Rue des Saules? It’s hard to read the street plaque shown. The second features Au Lapin Agile, the famous pink-fronted café within which Steve Martin set his first full-length play, Picasso at the Lapin Agile. The third is the Place Marcel Aymé, where actor-sculptor Jean Marais used a thick stone wall to attach his bronze version of DuSoleil passing through it.
Maybe Amour will have served its purpose if it only nudges tourists to search Montmartre for the Rue Norvins, along which Place Marcel Aymé is located. Sitting restfully there and reading the author’s story may be an ideal outcome for any tourist.
Amour was streamed beginning April 2, 2021 and will remain online through April 4. Information and link to free streaming: stellartickets.com
