The source of this stage adaptation is Vincente Minnelli’s 1951 movie musical of the same name, starring Gene Kelly and Leslie Caron in her film début. The musical score was cobbled together from George and Ira Gershwin’s back catalogue of songs, and includes standards such as ‘’S Wonderful’, ‘I Got Rhythm’, and ‘But Not for Me’. In this way it resembles Cole Porter’s works, which often comprised a mélange of songs written for other purposes, and in a practice stretching back before that to Gioachino Rossini, a notorious pilferer of his own works. It is by no means an illegitimate way to build a score; it just means that the songs can feel divorced from their dramatic setting, even sometimes replaceable.

Even at the time of the film’s release, some critics were complaining about the ‘very obvious tourist’s view’ of the City of Lights, and the stage version is certainly also guilty of a reliance on tropes and clichés of Parisian life that wouldn’t look out of place in the recent Netflix schmaltz-fest, Emily in Paris. And yet somehow it all works a treat, those broad brushstrokes of design and stage composition reflecting old Europe’s brasseries and music halls, as well as the increasing pop sensibilities of post-modernism. It is nostalgic and sentimental, but deliberately and convincingly so.

The story is gossamer thin, and often feels like a mere pretext for long sequences of swoon-worthy dance. Composer Adam Hochberg (Jonathan Hickey) is our Nick Carraway, narrating the story of his friend Jerry Mulligan’s (Robbie Fairchild) time in Paris after the war, his love affair with aspiring ballet dancer Lise (Leanne Cope), and the two men’s plunge into the demi-monde of dancers, artists, and cabaret singers trying to bring life and joy to the war-ravaged city. Jerry’s wooing of Lise is complicated on his side by glamorous patron Milo Davenport (Ashleigh Rubenach), who wants to make him a celebrated artist, and on hers by the man who wants to marry her, Henri (Sam Ward). The choice the lovers face is between sensible, career-minded ambition and wild romantic abandon. There are no prizes for guessing which way they go. 

The ensemble in An American in Paris (photograph by Darren Thomas)

The cast, led by Broadway imports Fairchild and Cope, are magnificent, as assured in song as they are in dance. Much of the show is made up of the latter, and while the casting of Broadway performers in local productions has always been problematic, the sheer skill and bravado of the leads ensure the practice feels justified here. Fairchild, in particular, is extraordinary; boisterous and bursting with energy, he channels Gene Kelly’s innate charm but adds a charged sexual energy, a sense of animal magnetism Kelly certainly lacked. Cope is more demure, her grace initially understated, but she develops the role nicely and triumphs in the final ballet. Ward brings a lovely tenor (and a rather wobbly accent) to Henri, and Rubenach is terrific as the sophisticated, slightly cynical Davenport. Anne Wood is typically pitch perfect as the impervious, lofty Madame Baurel, the only person on stage who feels authentically French.

Director and choreographer Christopher Wheeldon is something of an international superstar in the world of dance – creating large-scale, award-winning works like Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and The Winter’s Tale for The Royal Ballet – and his artistry and experience shine through in every scene. The movement encompasses the glorious, graceful lines of traditional ballet, the robust energy and exuberance of musical theatre, and the angular sensuality of contemporary dance, culminating in a final ballet sequence of transcendent joy. For much of the performance, the company seems like it can do anything, although the one sequence that eludes their skill is the tap in the Busby Berkeley-inspired chorus line that accompanies ‘I’ll Build a Stairway to Paradise’.

Bob Crowley’s elegant, swirling set and costume design combine effortlessly with 59 Productions’ projections to evoke a fantasy version of post-war Paris, a sense of a new ebullience being sketched before our eyes. Natasha Katz’s lighting leans into the joyful spirit of the whole, even if it never quite reaches the saturated colour of Minnelli’s vision on film. This touring production is a few years old now, and doesn’t have the level of artistry audiences can expect from a show like Moulin Rouge! But it is eye-catching and luxurious all the same.

An American in Paris is in some ways a throwback to a lost age of American theatre, closer in spirit to shows like Crazy for You and 42nd Street than the more sophisticated dramatic works of Rogers and Hammerstein or, indeed, Stephen Sondheim. It is uncomplicated, light-weight, and decidedly escapist, and yet no less joyous and life-affirming for that. It unashamedly celebrates the past, even while it purports to champion renewal and rebirth. In the context of our own unsettled and unsettling world, as we wait to see if Americans will again move into a European conflict, it feels like a tonic. Americans may be crass and bombastic, but they certainly know how to sweep us all away.

An American in Paris (The Australian Ballet and GWB Entertainment), directed by Christopher Wheeldon, is being performed at the State Theatre, Arts Centre Melbourne from 20 March to 23 April 2022. Performance attended: 20 March.