Amour reached Broadway in September 2002 and closed a month later. It was the first Broadway musical to come from Michel LeGrand, the tunesmith who gave us such terrific songs as "I Will Wait For You" and "What are You Doing the Rest of Your Life?," as well as the film scores to "The Umbrellas of Cherbourg" and "Yentl." With a cast of nine and a four-piece orchestra, it was a slight, through-sung musical, running ninety minutes and drawing its flavor from the
opera bouffe.
Adapted from a popular short story, and set in Paris in the Fifties, it's a tale about an M. Dusoleil, the office nerd, who discovers he can walk through walls (for no reason at all). He becomes a celebrity, a sort of Robin Hood, nicknamed M. Passepartout. He's in love with une femme who's married to un ogre, and the vicissitudes of the plot finally bring them together for a moment.
From its vocalese opening ("La-da-da-da"), this is a charming show, not least because it dares to be so modest. Its English libretto is clever (adapted from the French). The unwanted husband is Paris' prosecutor, but he runs with a bad crowd. He sings: "I wouldn't want to call them henchman. They're a bunch of honest Frenchman."
When our hero first assumes his powers, he sees a quack doctor for help, and we get this exchange: "You're surprised to see a patient walk through a wall." "No - the surprise is seeing a patient at all."
LeGrand's music is appealing, with the sparkle of a Parisian cabaret. But it's a limited musical form, and Legrand's orchestrations fail to produce the range of moods a play needs. They have a sameness that flattens the story. The problem is found as well in the leading man, Malcolm Gets. As actor and singer, he's subtle and undeniably appealing, with a fine, disciplined voice. But in his transformation from Dusoliel to Passepartout, as he gains confidence and makes a folk hero of himself (his downfall stems from a sort of hubris), his voice reflects nothing of his personal development.
Happily, the show's musical personality is expanded in a climactic trial scene, when the defense party breaks into an unexpected can-can. And this is soon followed by the play's most intimate moment, a bedroom love scene. Melissa Errico is elegant as la jeune femme. And Christopher Fitzgerald excels in a supporting role as a news vendor who becomes (for no reason) Passepartout's defense attorney -- he's animated and whimsical. When it was produced in Paris (with the title, "Le Passe-Muraille"), Amour won the Prix Moliere for Best Musical. I suspect that, with its post-war setting (the war echoes in the plot), it had social overtones that we miss. On Broadway it was merely a delightful novelty; and that's enough. It expanded Broadway's formalistic range, for which we're grateful.
