Theatre Reviews

Tonight I was fortunate enough to see one of my all-time favorite musicals, Passion. This beautiful musical composed by Sondheim was playing at the Theatre Châtelet where I saw West Side Story when I was studying in Paris in undergrad. This show was absolutely fantastic. It was in English with French super titles, like at an opera. The set was very minimalist, with several backdrops that were black and white graffiti like prints. The story follows a soldier who is deeply in love with a woman he's just met. He is called away as an assignment in a small town, away from his love in Milan. The musical is essentially the correspondence in letters between the soldier, Giorgio and his lover, Clara. Giorgio begins to develop a friendship with his captain's ill cousin, Fosca. He lends her books as she loves to read and she quickly falls in love with him. I won't spoil the rest but there are themes of what is real love and what is passion. A very beautiful show, with obviously amazing music. If you have never heard it or seen it, go listen to it right now. This production was very simple in set, lighting and though  they had period costumes, the focus was on the music. This show is only one act as well, focusing on the depth of characters, rather than working primarily to advance a story (in my opinion).  This show really shows and makes one question what is real love? How can one show it? How can one give it? How can one accept it and should they? The power of love, music and theatre makes for a very emotional production. Everyone was humming the main theme as I left the theatre, clearly a very moving show.

Last week, NYU took us to see Les Liaisons Dangereuses at Theatre de la Ville, incidentally just across the street for Theatre Châtelet. This was an adaptation of the original novel. We were lucky to have a discussion with the director and an actor before the show. She said the adaptation took her a year and she chose to take on the project because she had a particular actress in mind to play the lead role. This was another simple set with period costumes. I was think the set was meant to symbolize a prison, as the ultimate message is how are actions and the actions of others can imprison us. The whole idea of being a "libertine", doing whatever you want without consequence does not work. This play was almost 3 hours long with no intermission, but was the most powerful ending of any play I've see. The actress showed such emotion and sadness as she left the stage, that the whole audience was silent for a brief few moments before applauding.

I am so glad I was able to see such amazing pieces of theatre as my time in Pairs winds down!