'An American In Paris' Brings Broadway To The Melbourne Stage

An American In Paris at The State Theatre in Melbourne has bought a touch of Broadway to Australia. The stars of the show, Robert Fairchild as Jerry Mulligan and Leanne Cope as Lise Dassin, were the stars of the original Broadway production in 2015.

The music of Gershwin and the Australian Ballet and that classic 17-minute ballet movie scene makes for an incredible night of theatre.

However, the producers of ‘An American In Paris’ do quietly warn you in advance that the theatre production is “inspired” by the movie, it is not the same story. While the movie’s storyline has some cross-overs with the theatre production it is best to describe this as an “alternate story” rather an musical version of the movie.

The differences with 1951 movie are significant. The movie does not mention War, Nazis or identify any character as Jewish. The Henri vs Jerry love of Lise is expanded to a love triangle with Adam, Jerry, Henri for the musical and the characters of Henri’s parents and their concern for his sexuality is not in the movie at all. Christopher Wheeldon has very much reinvented the wheel with this storyline by adapting this musical from the 2014 book rather than the 1951 movie.

An American in Paris with Sam Ward, Jonathan Hickey, Robbie Fairchild photo by Darren Thomas

That said, if you haven’t seen the movie, then you will have nothing to compare except what happens of stage and ‘An American In Paris’ is great entertainment.

Wheeldon has kept the centre-piece of the movie, the 17-minute ballet scene and the Australian Ballet perform a stunning replica of one of the greatest Hollywood scenes of all-time. The movie seen cost an exorbitant $500,000 in its day to make and was filmed across 44 sound stages in MGM’s backlot. With thanks to digital technology, the sets can be instantly changed these days. It is actually one of the marvels of live theatre today and something I am knew was possible for the first time with the 2010 Australian production of ‘Hairspray’.

Because ‘An American In Paris’ is part musical, part play, part ballet, it at times feels disconnected. If you entered right after interval for the start of Act 2 you would think you had come to a comedy play. Act 1 connects the music of Gershwin to set up the plot and focuses on the actors over the dancers at that stage but that final ballet scene is the highlight of the show and makes the perfection of the Australian Ballet to true star of the show.

‘An American in Paris’ had interesting origins. While the movie came out in 1951 post-World War II, the music of George and Ira Gershwin was written before the war started. Ira Gershwin died in 1937 and his brother George sold the publishing in 1939. With that as an asset, the movie company created the story around the stand-alone songs to capitalize on their investment. Those classic songs, ‘I Got Rhythm’, ‘But Not For Me’, ‘S Wonderful’ and ‘They Can’t Take That Away From Me’ were disconnected from each other until the movie connected them.

As this musical frames the story into the post-war period it makes a statement right at the start while the movie never made any political statements. Given the current situation with Russian terrorist Putin outing himself as the most evil arse-wipe since Hitler, the timing of the statement may have been unintentional but appropriate.

An American in Paris Australian Cast – photo credit Darren Thomas

GWB Entertainment are behind the currently touring ‘Jagged Little Pill’ and ‘Girl From The North Country’.

‘An American In Paris’ is at Arts Centre Melbourne until 23 April 2022.

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