Broadway Theater Review: Gigi

A Visual Delight, but Not Enough Intellectual Stimulation
By Lauren Yarger
In what is the biggest snub of the 2015 Tony Award nominations, Gigi snagged only a Best featured Actress nomination for Victoria Clark, but failed to get a nod for its beautiful costumes by Catherine Zuber or Parisian sets designed by Derek McLane.

This Broadway revival is a sensory delight, so the oversight is a bit baffling. The book and lyrics Alan Jay Lerner with a score by Frederick Loewe are pretty unremarkable, though a few songs, like "I Remember It Well" and "Thank Heaven for Little Girls"  live on. An old-fashioned overture opens the show.

The action directed by Eric Schaeffer, is insipid. But the gorgeous sets, which look like artist sketches and works of art in a gallery and those meticulously created costumes are worth the price of the ticket. The show was robbed as far as the Tonys go (Zuber did receive Drama Desk nomination.)

Gigi began life as a 1944 novella by Colette, was adapted for the Broadway stage in 1951 as a straight play by author Anita Loos and starred an unknown Audrey Hepburn in the title role. In 1956 as Gigi, it became Lerner and Loewe's first screen musical. turned it into the musical, "Gigi," as their first musical written for the screen and it swept the Oscars.

Now a plot that was fresh and exciting in 1951 doesn't always revive well onstage, so Heidi Thomas of TV's “Call the Midwife”) was brought in for a new book adaptation, It still doesn't work. The story and music is fairly uninteresting (people were getting up and walking out to use the facilities during the show) and the jokes don't work.

Gigi (High School Musical's Vanessa Hudgens) is an effervescent young girl in turn-of-the-20th century Paris who is being groomed as a courtesan in the tradition of her Aunt Alicia (Dee Hoty) and grandmother, Madame "Mamita" Alvarez (Clark).

OK, I'm out. The idea of offering up this young girl as a sex object to some man is not a good plot for anything in my opinion.

Complications ensue as Mamita's old flame, for lack of a better word, Honoré Lachaille (Howard McGillan) and his dashing nephew, Gaston (Corey Cott) become involved in the lives of the women. Gigi realizes she has fallen in love with Gaston, but Aunt Alicia wants her to wait until a deal is struck.

Gaston initially courts Liane d'Exelmans (Stefanie Leigh) but finds that he too has fallen in love with the little girl he has known so long -- who has grown into a beautiful woman (made plain by Zuber's stunning gown). Gigi balks at the offer of being only his mistress, however.

The always excellent Clark does her best with the role and delivers a moving rendition of "Say a Prayer." Hudgens has a lovely voice and shows amazing breath control while doing Joshuah Bergasse's choreography,

But while I enjoyed watching the show, I didn't enjoy it. I and Gigi needed something more.

Gigi plays at the Neil Simon Theatre, 250 West 52nd St., NYC. Performances are Tuesday and Thursday at 7 pm; Wednesday at 2 and 8 pm; Friday at 8 pm; Saturday at 2 and 8 pm; Sunday at 3 pm;  Tickets are $75.75 - $156.75: http://gigionbroadway.com.

Full disclosure: One of the show's producers, Pat Addiss is a personal friend. 

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-- Besides the whole courtesan thing, no content notes.