- Jacques Brel
I’m not sure how long it’s been exactly since Jacques Brel is Alive and Well and Living in Paris last played on a Memphis stage. I’m not certain that I want to know because knowing will make me feel like a fossil. It has to have been 20 years. It was last seen at Circuit Playhouse where it’s being revived beginning this weekend. The last production opened sometime in the early 90’s and featured the great Jim Ostrander performing alongside a newcomer named Michael Detroit. At least that’s how things were supposed to happen. I’d recently formed a small theater company with the show’s director Sidney Lynch and had agreed to sit in on rehearsals as her extra set of eyes and ears. It was a silly proposition really because I knew very little about Brel at the time and had no idea what to expect. I certainly didn’t anticipate being so completely devastated by what I heard. I honestly don’t think I’d been so high on language and rhythm since Shakespeare was first poured down my throat.
Shortly before that production was scheduled to open Mike became seriously ill and it was clear he couldn’t go on. Sidney looked at me and I held my hands up in surrender. I wasn’t that kind of singer and even if I was there was no way I could learn all those amazing songs so quickly. Calls were made, drinks were drunk and hands were wrung. That’s when Jim Ostrander did the most amazing thing I’ve ever seen. He told Sidney not to worry. He’d done the show before and knew every note. He could sing Michael’s songs too. And so he did. It was a superhuman effort and I must have watched him do it ten times at least. It’s not just one of my favorite shows it’s one of my favorite memories. That’s why I am so pleased to present right here in one epic blog post every damn song from Jacques Brel is Alive & Well and Living in Paris as performed by Dusty Springfield, Ray Charles, David Bowie, The Dresden Dolls, Marlene Dietrich, Marc Almond and of course, Jacques Brel. Annotated for your pleasure.
It begins like this…
Marathon: If there is a better song about the relentlessness of time I don’t know it
We must dance because the Thirties scream
The Thirties scream because the Horsemen ride
Orphan Annie lives, Daddy Warbucks dies
Breadlines, shanty towns, Frankenstein’s bride
Adolf Hitler and the Siegfried follies
Joseph Stalin and a bag full of jollies
Call your broker and buy marzipan
While we keep on dancing, dancing on and on