Posted: 5/3/15 at 3:16am
Credit where credit is due to our grand dame de theatre.
She is the glue that makes that cast a performance every night.
She got the Tony nom.
[SPOILERS]
I wish the show could/would make one change that would help balance out the evening as the long dull start is unnecessary. It needs to begin with the two grand dames finishing a tete-a-tete, Mamita about to leave. A line about "it's not going to be long now and you must be prepared" to which Mamita quips "she's still so young" and then launch into their opening duet of "Thank Heaven for Little Girls". This, to give the audience a good song with some terrific acting and singing and set up the premise. We then know that something is coming to a head and that there is a promise of a PLOT. This also allows the show's top talent and theatre STAR, who is Ms. Clark, to frame the evening, giving the story a beginning, middle and end rather than the "first 20-minute fog" it begins with now.
A beautiful setup at the start like that will immediately grab the audience and they'll be happy and more content to hang out knowing there is more great singing ahead.
This would then balance out the musical, which also does not have to try to center on Gigi (a weak pop belter singer) as it attempts to do now. The musical would express better the heroic story of the woman who raised Gigi and wants the best for her despite the absence of her absent daughter in her granddaughter's life. It is, after all, Mamita's relationship with Honore and what happened in the past between them that is the backstory. And the unanswered question of whether Gigi is Honore's granddaughter as well, which would help explain why the young sugar baron Gaston, Honore's nephew, is a family friend.
Mamita and Honore are coming to terms with their past relationship to the benefit of the younger generation. So Gaston comes full circle in his terrific "Gigi" number, with life repeating itself for a different outcome. McGillin does not yet fully illuminate Honore in his performance yet, choosing to portray a lightweight, aged dandy rather than a man of intelligence and charm perceiving the missed moment of decision in his past with a regret and a remaining affection that catapults him to sly action. He could portray a sensitive man with a tragic flaw, a lack of courage who chooses to present himself as a lightweight dandy as a mask to avoid the risk of love, yet there must be layers and nuance in that "I Remember it Well", which could be rendered as a sneaky way of seeing whether Mamita had cared enough about him to remember what he pretends he has forgotten. There are possibilities there that could change nightly in which McGillin could move into the moment, alive rather than recorded in the role to bump his acting up to Ms. Clark's level because he seems rusty, creaky (too much same old same old Phantom for too long?) and he is capable of adding some depth and excitement to his role with a bit of grease on the acting joint, so to mix metaphors. Ms. Clark would relish any acting nuance he throws her as would the audience...
