Traveled to Paris again last night (and Hollywood plus New York’s Broadway.) It happened in Houston at the Alley Theater, where they had a world premier of “The Gershwins’ An American in Paris,” music and lyrics by George and Ira Gershwin and play by playwright Ken Ludwig. Most of the performers were veterans of Broadway (and it showed) and Hollywood (and that showed too), performing on the Alley Theater stage for the first time.  

The play was a piece of fluff, containing a backstage assistant to Mr. Goldwin (a play on names which much of the performance was) (this young man was a tap dancing master), a quiet, stay-at-home assistant, Miss Klemm,  who was forced to go to Paris to enlist the performance of a French master performer, played by Harry Groener (a take-off on the grand Maurice from Gigi, here called Michel Gerard) (they, of course, fall in love), a Hollywood star with a Brooklyn accent (looking like Marilyn Monroe, by the name of Hermia- a play on Hernia I am sure), the niece of Michel who loves Hollywood movies and sprinkled her dialogue with all the known-cliches from all the famous movies (who could also dance and sing like a Paris angel and slut) and many, many more characters. Of course, love goes to the seashore at the end of this trip to the past, and the movie that they are making, called strangely An American in Paris but having little to do with the movie and the Broadway play. The movie takes on a new script at the final scene, getting Gene Kelly to play the photograph who is the American and a young Paris girl, another niece of Gerard, called Mimi, but the producer changes her name to Leslie Caron. If you are confused, so were we, sort of, but it made no difference. The musical was marvelous and the performances brilliant and the set magnificent so we were all transported to Paris, still speaking American and echoing Hollywood. It is sad that George died at 39 in Hollywood, working on a film that used his melodies. His brother Ira lived to 87, being born two year before George in 1896, dying peaceful in his Hollywood home in 1983. George was famous for saying, “The song is the important thing, not the words or music as separate entities.” His wife Leonare commented, “I never saw a greater love than the love George and Ira had for each other.” It showed too.

When Anne and I went to the Republic of Georgia for a year in 2001-2002, we made sure that we stayed in Paris for a week, in a small Parisian hotel on the second floor across from the Louvre, in walking distance of Notre Dame and a cab ride from the Eiffel Tower. We were the Americans in Paris. We had a romantic time.  We did the whole tourist thing, including all the night spots in Montmartre and the small, intimate eating place all over the city. We followed that by a week in Istanbul, visiting Hagia Sophia, the Blur Mosque, other mosques, the museums, plus the eating and dancing places that we could find. We even visited the birthplace of Rumi, the 14^th century Islamic mystic poet (who I still feel is the Shakespeare of the Middle East) who lived for a time about 75 miles south of Istanbul in the “sand castle region” of Turkey (where inhabitants carved out homes in the sandstone columns.) Before leaving we took the boat up the river, between two continents, and watched the sun set on the Black Sea.

Therefore, returning as Americans to Paris, even for one imaginary night, opened all kind of memory doors for us which we have not closed yet. The musical is worth the price, the time and the experience. You might not see a “world premier” but c’est le vie. You will experience the true magic of live theater which can transport you for a contained time into other places with strange sounding names but universal lessons to be learn again. We loved our travel to Paris again. Watch for it in your area of the world.