Cabaret Review: "Jacques Brel: The Impossible Dream"
The troupe performing at the Blue Strawberry April 5th were simply delicious.
Jacques Brel at the Blue Strawberry! It was, I think, the most wonderful evening of cabaret I’ve ever experienced. It was designed and directed by André Nerman who portrays the iconic French singer/song-writer. He’s joined by actor and singer Lucile, and pianist/singer/actor Laurent Clergeau. This show has performed in five theaters in Paris and has toured extensively in France, Russia, Japan, Morocco, Belgium and the United States. It is a triumph for the Blue Strawberry.
Jacques Brel was perhaps the world’s most famously popular chansonnier. The chanson is a genre with a family line going back to the troubadours—not an art song exactly, but with lyrics having a serious literary edge, and with music keyed to the rhythms of the French language. They are story-telling songs—stories of love and of loss, of irony, of courage, of war. They can be charming and delicate. They can be devastating. They are often sung with great passion. And, God bless ‘em, they’re sung in French!
Jacques Brel, Belgian born in 1929, flashed into the popular charts in France in the mid 1950’s. By the mid ‘60’s he was an international super-star. He sold over twenty-five million records!
After his gig at Carnegie Hall in 1965 The Times described it as “by turns funny, poetic, heartbreaking, bitter, gentle and loving. He left his audience limp and in awe of an extraordinary ability.”
In 1968 a lovely little musical opened Off-Broadway. It was called Jacques Brel is Alive and Well and Living in Paris. It ran for four years and made Brel a household word in America.
The troupe performing at the Blue Strawberry are simply delicious. André Nerman, tall and lean and handsomely greying, has a deep rich baritone that is perfect for all these Brel songs. He so naturally conveys all the meaning and passion of every lyric. Mlle. Lucile is a very lovely younger woman whose voice, in its lower tones, can become an enchanting, hypnotic cello. She wears a knit dress in a soft dark rose, with a long slit skirt; that’s a dangerous thing for any woman. But this woman has the stunning figure that allows her to wear such a dress with utterly confident Parisian nonchalance. Yet occasionally she can abandon this deep sexiness to become a playful, wide-eyed innocent little girl.
These two, Lucile and M. Nerman, are not only superb singers; they are profoundly gifted actors. They work beautifully together.
Laurent Clergeau is the pianist, with slightly tousled gray hair and pony-tail. He supports Nerman and Lucile so gracefully and occasionally he joins in the songs. He too is a gifted actor/singer and adds touches of charm and wit.
The entire evening is in French, with no more traces of English than might naturally occur in conversation among Parisians. This helps to transport the audience to Paris—which was where we all so wanted to be.
There was no program, and many of the songs sped by at paces beyond my slow French comprehension. But I recognized a number of great Brel classics: “Amsterdam”, “Matilde”, “Marieke”, “Les toros” (where we experience a bull-fight), the heartbreaking “Ne me quitte pas”, and “La valse à mille temps” (which, like Ravel’s piece, accelerates into madness).
The evening is drenched in wonderful vocal and dramatic gifts and skills. This is professionalism at its highest—and so easily, gracefully presented. There is gentle humor, there is nostalgia, there is despair—and hope.
I’ve been watching some Jacques Brel clips. Brel is so passionate. He’s drenched in sweat. He explosively rattles all those Parisian “r”s. But he seems a bit too young to be singing such deeply serious lyrics. André Nerman sings them with the gravitas and honesty and depth of character that Jacques Brel might have attained had he not died at forty-nine. And frankly he’s better looking than Brel. Brel’s gigs usually had him draped with wisps of cigarette smoke. I’ve never been a smoker, but at the Blue Strawberry I actually kinda missed that decadent bit of ambience. Ah, well. The times they change.
It was a wonderful evening of world-class cabaret. Many thanks to the Alliance Francaise—and to sponsors Jane and Bruce Robert.
Jacques Brel is alive and well wherever this amazing troupe goes.
For information on upcoming shows at The Blue Strawberry, visit their web site.
[Editor’s Note: the show’s title refers to the fact that the Jacques Brel translated, directed, and starred in the 1968 French adaptation of the musical Man of La Mancha. Brel can be heard singing the title role in the French cast album, L'Homme de la Mancha, released in 1968.]