‘Jacques Brel’ brings the Paris lifestyle and music to USU
Twice a night for seven nights, Utah State Theatre is inviting the audience out of their seats and onto the stage to join with their large-cast ensemble for an evening of music, dance and entertainment.
“‘Jacques Brel is Alive and Well and Living in Paris,’ is a compilation of 22 of the most profound and memorable songs of composer Jacques Brel,” director Lynda Linford said.
“We are recreating a ‘cabaret’ experience and have, in essence, converted the stage space into a small intimate space,” Linford said. “However, we have also boosted the ‘circus’ atmosphere of those environments, coupled with the addition of moving picture, vaudeville and musical hall revue; the entire production will be a bit of panache, something for everyone.”
Taking their cue from cabaret settings like those featured in the movie musical “Moulin Rouge,” the audience will be located at different locations around the stage, with some even sitting at coffee tables, on couches or at a bar placed in the corner.
“They talked at one point about even putting some people on the floor with pillows,” singer Nick Hutchinson, a senior majoring in theater education, said.
The show promises to be anything but normal theater fare.
“True to the cabaret style of performance, a lot of what we are going to be doing is interacting with the audience. There are going to be numbers where we’ll play off the audience and there are times you might be picked out of the audience and sung to particularly. There are a myriad of other things that might happen, such as characters popping out of the audience,” Hutchinson said.
Departing from traditional theater productions of UST’s past, this production has no real plot, but only the cohesiveness of Brel’s music holding it together.
“‘Jacque Brel’s’ music is all pretty thematic,” Hutchinson said. “It addresses the political issues that were happening at the time – it talks a lot about the war. A lot of his songs are really, really upbeat and happy, but a lot of his lyrics end up being really, really dark and really, really pointed with the message that they have.”
Though some of the songs contain strong language, Hutchinson said the production is not offensive if taken in the light of when and where it was written. The songs themselves run the gamut of emotional experience.
“There’s a lot of introspective moments,” Hutchinson said, “[the production] is going to make you think about the way societies work with you and how you work with yourself. There’s going to be a lot of fun, a lot of serious moments and moments that might even make you cry.”
Working in collaboration with the art department, the production will feature a multi-media production resulting from hours of filming, computer work, research and archival investigation.
“The graphic artists from the Utah State department of art have been working on this piece for some six months,” Linford said. “Eight artists have been assigned approximately two songs, in which an MTV-like background will be seen behind singers and dancers. We are ecstatic that this ‘Brel’ production showcases their valuable talents in a popular format where appreciative audiences can experience their creative genius in gigantic dimension.”
Originally opening at Village Gate in New York in 1966 and running for nearly 2000 performances, “Jacque Brel” was made into a film in 1975 and revived in a production at The King’s Head Theatre in 1996.
Born in Brussels in 1929, Brel moved to France at the age of 23 where he wrote and tried to sell his songs. After decades of musical fame, Brel retired from the stage in 1967, though he did continue writing songs. Brel battled lung cancer, but finally succumbed in 1978.
Brel’s songs have been performed by a number of artists, including Frank Sinatra, Ray Charles and David Bowie and he has at various times been compared to singer/songwriters like Bob Dylan, John Lennon and Leonard Cohen.
Tickets for Utah State Theatre’s production of “Jacques Brel” are available at the Utah State Smith Spectrum Ticket Office, by calling 797-0305 or online at www.usu.edu/theatre. For general inquiries about the production, or other Utah State Theatre productions, call 797-1500.
Please note that no children younger than the age of 6 are admited into the theater. Curtain time for the first evening performance is 7 p.m., with the second performance beginning at 9:30 p.m.
“Come to see something that you’ve never seen before, something that will challenge you personally. Come and feel what a real cabaret night feels like and come with an introspective look at things,” Hutchinson said. “Be ready to be touched by a lot of what’s happening.”
-mattgo@cc.usu.edu