Jacques Brel Review

Dear friends of the performing arts,

A week ago last Saturday, THE HUB editor, Lisa Mied, asked me to cover and 
review the Celebration Company at The Station Theatre's procuction of JACQUES 
BREL IS ALIVE AND WELL AND LIVING IN PARIS.  I did just that, but for reasons 
never explained to me, THE HUB chose not to run the review.  Therefore, I am 
sending it to you now.

	Jacques Brel Is Alive and Well and Living in Paris
	A Review
	by James L. Seay

	Even though he has been dead for 26 years, Jacques Brel is still alive 
and well at the Station Theatre in Urbana.  The Celebration Company’s venerable 
artistic director, Rick Orr has again pulled a rabbit out of the hat in his 
production of Jacques Brel Is Alive and Well and Living in Paris.  This 
librettoless and plotless cabaret type musical review seems particularly fitted 
for the Station’s black box pocket theatre.  Andy Warfel’s simple but effective 
set design, which rotated the audience 180 degrees from its usual 
configuration, gave the illusion of a Parisian bistro, with audience members 
seated at candle lit cabaret tables placed next to a raised platform which 
extended from a false proscenium with brooding black and white photographs of 
the Belgian troubadour on each side of the arch.  Behind the playing area was a 
scrim emblazoned with Brel’s signature, and Felix Chan’s excellent pit 
orchestra vaguely visible behind it.  The entire visual effect was exactly what 
this type of production needed.

	Jacques Brel Is Alive and Well and Living in Paris, which originally 
opened at The Village Gate Theatre in New York’s Greenwich Village in 1967 and 
played there for five years, is of a genre that was popular in the late sixties 
and early seventies, which included Side by Side by Sondheim (the music of 
Stephen Sondheim), O, Coward (the music of Noel Coward), Hunky Dory (the music 
of Dory Previn) and My Way (the music of Frank Sinatra).  This type of 
production is rarely seen now, save for revivals, which is actually a shame.  
Jacques Brel Is Alive and Well... has gone through several New York and London 
revivals, not to mention regional theatres, and still works well.  The Brussels 
born troubadour’s poetic lyrics, which seemed to be of much greater importance 
to him than the music upon which they were hung, remain timeless, exploring 
such themes as lust, greed, betrayal, loneliness, rejection and unrequited 
love. He sings of lost love and broken dreams, of the pathos of war heroes and 
the sadness of old age.  Brel wanted to get his message across, and the words 
were more important than the music, itself.  By missing the lyrics, the 
listener misses Brel.  His heroes and anti-heroes come from life, itself, and 
he does not shrink from using his own personal experiences and dreams to 
develop them.  He was haunted by the effect of time on the body and the 
disgrace of physical degradation.  It has been said that Brel feared aging far 
more than death, itself.  He died of lung cancer at the age of 49.

	In the Celebration Company’s production, a quartet of  “desperate ones” 
(Jared Garrison, Kay Shaw and Jim and Debra Dobbs) bare their souls and spill 
their guts at a Brechtian cabaret.  Mr. Garrison does a grand job in the show’s 
first solo (Alone).  When the play first opened in 1967, Brel was so opposed to 
America’s involvement in the Viet Nam War, he refused to attend the opening.  
This opposition is clear in the lyrics of this song, but it struck me how the 
lyrics seem even more apropos to today’s sad tangle in the Middle East than 
even in the Southeast Asia of the sixties.  Debra Dobbs beautiful voice brings 
meaning to My Death and Jim Dobbs rendition of Jackie, who longs to be “cute in 
a stupid-ass way” for just an hour so everyone will love him, brings an unusual 
twist to the lyrics as Brel uses the ironies of life to do just that.

	After the intermission, the second act begins with one of my favorite 
Brel ballads, The Bulls, by Mr. Garrison and the Company, in which there seems 
to be a faint hope for the future underlying the lyrical poignancy of the 
piece.  This is followed by the light-hearted Middle Class duet by the two men, 
and  the glimmer of hope seems to begin to blossom in Kay Shaw’s beautiful 
rendition of No Love You Are Not Alone.  The Company then captivates the 
audience with the almost hypnotic Carousel, with its rising and falling waltz 
rhythms, its spinning umbrellas and revolving lights.  This leads into the 
finale, If We Only Have Love, giving more hope as the Company sings “If we only 
have love/ We can melt all the guns/ and then give to the world/ To our 
daughters and sons...”

	If I have any problem at all with the Celebration Company’s production 
of Jacques Brel Is Alive and Well and Living in Paris, it would be that the 
truly excellent pit orchestra sometimes overshadows the voices, particularly 
the beautiful lyric voices of the two women, and makes it difficult for the 
audience to catch the lyrics, which, as I have already said, are paramount in 
the music of Brel.

	When I was a young man, Jacques Brel had an almost cult status among 
those of us who must have felt as worldly and cynical as our older siblings did 
about Edith Piaf and even Kurt Weill.  However, after a few years, I would 
replace Jacques Brel with Stephen Sondheim – but that is another story and 
another sound.  It was good to become reacquainted with Brel once again.

	Under Rick Orr’s direction, the cast of four glides seamlessly from one 
number to the other.  The music will haunt you for days.  You only have until 
this Saturday to see this production.  Don’t be put off by having seen Jacques 
Brel... before.  If you haven’t seen this production, experience it!

	For ticket information, call The Station Theatre at (217) 384-4000.

	-30-
925 words

	

	

--
James L. "Jim" Seay
1507 Collier Avenue
Rantoul, IL  61866-3405
Ph. & Fax No. 217-893-0320
e-mail:  james.seay <at> mchsi.com

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