It was premiere night, last Friday in Kingsey Falls, for the team of Benoît Landry, who staged this musical comedy inspired by the life of the famous American stripper Lili St-Cyr. An effective show, which offers us a repertoire of new songs, catchy, delivered by inspired performers.
Lili St-Cyr took Highway 20, crossed ranks 7 and 13, passed through Saint-Lucien and Sainte-Séraphine, to get to Kingsey Falls, near Drummondville, where a crowd… in delirium. Well, let’s say a crowd in Bermuda shorts.
But imagine for a moment if the magnetic performer, sex symbol of the 1940s and 1950s, had actually driven two hours – to avoid Montreal’s restrictive municipal bylaws? – in order to deliver a performance right here, making their way between groups of… hostile people.
It is in this state of mind (a little twisted, it is true) that we awaited the appearance on stage of Marie-Pier Labrecque, who embodies on stage the subversive American artist who made the heyday of the Gayety Theater in the mid-1940s (where the TNM is today).
The opening number sets the tone. Marie-Pier Labrecque borrows the features of the stripper with charisma, always in seductive mode, winks at the public and sings (with a slight English accent) the words of Mélissa Cardona, set to music by Kevin Houle.
But rest assured (or protest, it depends), there will be no hostile quidam, no scandalous perfume, no gesture of provocation in Kingsey Falls – unlike the performances of Lili St-Cyr in Montreal -, Benoît Landry opting here for a family entertainment that looks like a burlesque comedy.
This does not prevent Marie-Pier Labrecque from delivering a nice performance – including the scene of the famous reverse striptease – but we would have liked to see her interact more with the public, as she had started to do in the opening scene. , tickle it a little more, create little discomfort…
In the libretto written by Mélissa Cardona, Lili St-Cyr is courted by the managers of the Théâtre Gayety and the Club El Morocco, Thomas Cloutier and Jimmy Orlando (Maxime Denommée and Stéphane Brulotte). She will sign a contract with Gayety and have an affair with Jimmy, a former hockey player.
To welcome Lili St-Cyr to the Gayety stage, her manager Thomas has to remove the name of his own wife, Sophie (formidable Lunou Zucchini), who sings Edith Piaf from the marquee…
All this takes place at the time when Montreal, which escaped the law on prohibition and sent its men to the front, is a capital of gambling, sex and drugs. A municipal councilor, Jessie Fisher (always excellent Kathleen Fortin), will campaign to eradicate the Montreal Red Light. Much to the chagrin of these gentlemen – lawyers, police officers, journalists, judges, etc. – who enjoy the show…
The counselor will have a rule adopted stipulating that an artist cannot leave the stage with fewer clothes than when they arrived. Which will push Lili St-Cyr to do a reverse striptease number where she appears naked in a bath at the start of the performance, then dresses gradually. The only moment when the spectators of Kingsey Falls held their breath and blushed in the dark.
Lili St-Cyr will become infatuated with Jimmy Orlando – a relationship that really took place, but which will not go anywhere given the infidelities of the ex-Red Wings player. A rare opportunity to enter the life of the artist who, after two hours of performance, remains surrounded by an aura of mystery. In the end, we will not know more about Marie Frances Van Schaack.
That said, the six performers form a coherent whole and there is in Lily St-Cyr a nice balance between the individual numbers and the pieces sung in chorus.
Hats off to Lunou Zucchini, who performs Piaf wonderfully, but who sang a few other pieces magnificently, including the song In a spiral staircase, a moving moment in the show if there ever was one. Maxime Denommée and Stéphane Brulotte are not to be outdone, each finding the right register to interpret the pieces of Mélissa Cardona.
Another important mention: Roger La Rue, who plays a host of characters, ranging from the owner of the Gayety to the ex-coach of the Canadian Dick Irvin, passing by a radio host, a journalist, a telephone operator, a policeman, a judge, and who else? The actor excels in each of his presence on stage, even if he plays around at times.
The scene of the stripper’s trial, followed by the verdict, which concludes the show, echoes the song Patricia, by Chris De Burgh… The musical thus ends on a jubilant note. After her summer series, Lili St-Cyr will embark on a Quebec tour that will certainly take her to Montreal next year. Hoping by then that she will find a way to make us blush even more.
