Silo dips into musical genre

Andrew Laing, Claire Chitham, Shane Bosher and Kate Prior in Jacques Brel is Alive and Well and Living in Paris

The Silo's last production for the year is its first musical.

In keeping with the theatre's reputation for staging the modern, experimental and cutting edge, it is not a big-budget, toe-tapping Broadway hit.

Rather, Jacques Brel is Alive and Well and Living in Paris is an intimate musical revue featuring 24 songs by possibly the most famous singer/song-writer you've never heard of.

In his brief lifetime - the Belgian composer died in 1978 of lung cancer aged 49 - Jacques Brel wrote more than 300 songs.

They have been recorded by the likes of Frank Sinatra, David Bowie, Dusty Springfield, Leonard Cohen, Nina Simone, Sting and Marc Almond.

American Terry Jack's 1974 hit Seasons in the Sun was an adaptation of Brel's Le Moribond.

There is an international foundation (Fondation Internationale Jacques Brel) dedicated to preserving Brel's memory, and this musical revue written by producer/translator Eric Blau and rock composer Mort Shuman.

Jacques Brel is Alive and Well and Living in Paris opened in 1968 at the off-Broadway Village Gate and ran for five years. Yet Brel never attained mass recognition outside France, where he spent most of his life.

Jennifer Ward-Lealand, who directs the Silo's production, and musical director Paul Barrett believe that may be because of his opposition to the Vietnam War.

Silo director Shane Bosher, one of four performers in the revue, talked earlier in the year about including Jacques Brel is Alive and Well and Living in Paris on the 2005 programme.

He opted for another musical which, for various reasons, did not proceed but returned to the Brel tribute, deciding it would be perfect for the Silo's intimate setting.

Ward-Lealand heard Brel's music in 1982 when her husband Michael Hurst appeared in an Auckland version of the show, and Barrett was involved with a 1984 production at Palmerston North's Centrepoint Theatre.

"It is beautiful music at the same time as being powerful and raw - the type where you are absolutely laying your heart out," says Ward-Lealand. "Brel's songs are about death, love, life and grief, but they are incredibly life-affirming, full of hope, heart and passion."

Barrett agrees, adding that the range of images and metaphors Brel used was vast.

In casting the two men and two women who appear in the show, Ward-Lealand wanted Bosher, who started his career in musical theatre, and Andrew Laing, but went through more extensive auditions to find the female singers.

"I wanted women who could sing but would also be interesting for an audience to watch."

She says both Claire Chitham, best known as Shortland Street's Waverley, and Kate Prior, stood out. Chitham admits some may be surprised to see her in a musical but points out that her career also began singing on stage.

"Shortland Street came up when I was 16 and everything else stopped," she says. "I had never heard of Jacques Brel but I wanted to sing again and this is a terrifyingly fantastic way to do that. It's a massive way to upskill."

To create just the right sort of atmosphere, the Silo will be transformed into a cabaret with the audience seated at tables. "It's a way to add to the experience, so people walk into our little rectangle and find it totally transformed," says Chitham.

* Jacques Brel is Alive and Well and Living in Paris is at the Silo Theatre, Nov 17-Dec 17