International Soiree

International Soirée Theatre: Bijou Theatre Opening Date: March 12, 1958; Closing Date: March 29, 1958 Despite its somewhat misleading title, International Soiree wasn’t a large and splashy revue. It was an intimate evening that played at the Bijou, Broadway’s smallest theatre, and was designed as a showcase for Patachou, who was a popular theatre and cabaret singer in France. (The star’s name, taken from the French word pate-a-choux, roughly translates as “pastry filling” or “cream puff.”) Hiram Sherman was the evening’s compere, and his patter and introductions went over well with the critics, although a few wished he had more to do. The evening was technically “international.” Besides the French Patachou, who appeared during the second act and sang a collection of songs from her repertoire, the evening offered the following entertainers in the first act: from Belgium, Marcel Cornelis, a comic pantomime; from France, George La Faye and Company (called the Theatre of Animation), a group of puppeteers; and Caracolillo and Maria Rosa (assisted by Rogelio Reguera on guitar), a team of Spanish dancers. Walter Kerr in the New York Herald Tribune said the rather “wistful” Cornelis offered pantomimes that “Marcel Marceau has done better”; but Frank Aston in the New York World-Telegram and Sun found him “excellent”; and John McClain in the New York Journal-American liked Cornelis’s “wonderfully-conceived impressions,” including a pianist who performs a friend’s composition that he has just seen for the first time (McClain suggested if Victor Borge got his hands on this piece he “could build it into an entire evening”). Robert Coleman in the Daily Mirror said Caracolillo and Maria Rosa were “smart” and “first-rate” Spanish dancers, and John Chapman in the Daily News noted their “stylish” act concluded with a “funny and no doubt lascivious conversation spoken only with castanets.” As for Georges La Faye and Company, the five-member troupe and their self-described Theatre of Animation seem to have been a forerunner of the Blue Man Group style of entertainment. The hidden performers utilized props to create illusions and abstractions on a blacked-out stage, and their creations included a ballet for a top hat and feather boa, illuminated rods, and, according to McClain, a “romantic involvement” among three newspapers. Richard Watts in the New York Post liked the “abstract and macabre” presentation, and noted the little ballet of geometric figures was “oddly beautiful”; Coleman noted the act was often as “eerie as ectoplasm”; and Kerr said the “silky abstractions” of “roguishly designed” puppets, “airborne” newspapers, neon tubing, geometric squares, a dancing baton, and a glowing red tennis ball were the “most exhilarating” part of the evening and the sequence left “the human race some distance behind—and panting.” Patachou came on for the second half of the evening wearing a simple white blouse with Peter Pan collar, a blue skirt, and high heels. The critics liked her, but felt she’d be more at home in a nightclub venue rather than the confines of a theatre auditorium. For all that, Kerr said she was “winning”; Lewis Funke in the New York Times said she was a “petite blond bundle of Gallic energy with a touch of Chevalier”; Aston said any man “would like to share his sputnik” with her on a slow trip to the moon and back; Chapman said she was the “perfect antidote” to Edith Piaf (and like Funke favorably compared her to Chevalier); and Coleman said she was “as effervescent as vintage champagne from her native France.” But despite the friendly reviews, International Soiree closed within three weeks. Perhaps the reviewers’ qualifiers (that the revue was too small for a Broadway theatre and required an intimate nightclub setting) turned off would-be ticket-buyers. The cast album was recorded by Audio Fidelity (LP # AFLP-1881) and was comprised of instrumental interludes as well as songs performed by Patachou (including “I’m in Love with a Wonderful Guy” and “Only for Americans”). Patachou returned to Broadway six years later under somewhat happier circumstances in the splashy revue Folies Bergère, which, like International Soiree, was produced by Arthur Lesser. Although the lavish evening lost its investment, it played at the Broadway Theatre for almost six months.

Music

Various

Lyrics

Various