Musical Mondays: Amélie
The theater is a place for serious thespians to hone their craft and show the nuanced pain and struggle of everyday life. Theater is also a place for the most grandiose performances filled with sequins, shine, glimmer, and grandiose in totality. But sometimes theater is just fun. Amélie was a musical that shied away from the first two and planted itself firmly within the third. The musical replaces glitz and glamor for wit and whimsy, and though it wasn’t nominated for any Tony Awards, it is definitely a listen that will bring a smile to your face.
Amélie is based on a French film of the same film and follows the quirky, titular character’s path from a childhood with overbearing parents to trying to find love in one of the most romantic cities on the planet, Paris. Phillpa Soo absolutely slays the role of Amélie is phenonelaly talented. She was in the original cast of Hamilton and has a voice that works for both belting and much quicker cadences. Her songs range from Times are Hard for Dreamers singing about her view of the world to Sister’s Lament where she is dressed like a nun in a sex shop—a bit that isn’t sacrilegious but makes for an incredibly funny juxtaposition that I loved watching but would not watch with my grandmother.
Other songs include Amélie’s only childhood friend, a fish, singing goodbye and Amélie’s father’s only friend, a garden gnome, singing about his travels around the world. It’s silly, it’s harmless, it’s fun. On a side note: I like to think those are three adjectives people would usually associate with my singing, but I imagine harmful is more apt. There is also a song with a gentlemen singing about figs, which I listen to time and time again and just really enjoy. I enjoy it much more than actual figs. Figs aren’t tasty.
The beauty of Amélie is in the absurdity of what I just described—a wide range of peculiar songs over a wide range of peculiar topics. It’s not an overly intellectual show, but it isn’t dumb either. It’s clever, it’s whimsical, and it does not ask too much of the audience. I don’t know why Amélie didn’t receive particularly high praise—it did open in a very busy, celebrated season. Maybe it’s because it wasn’t a particularly daring show, nor was it particularly unique. It was just a hell of a lot of fun, and sometimes that’s all you need at the theater.