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Article: "The Umbrellas of Cherbourg": Two River Theater Company.(PRODUCTION NOTEBOOK)
- Article from:
- American Theatre
- Article date:
- April 1, 2006
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2006 Theatre Communications Group. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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Jonathan Fox, DIRECTOR: It's tempting to peg The Umbrellas of Cherbourg as a musical or an opera, but Jacques Demy called it "a story in song and color," and I think that's the best description. The show begins as a sweet (some might say "saccharine") love story, but it takes unexpected dark and ironic twists. Boy meets girl, boy loses girl ... and never gets her back. We witness the tiny, almost imperceptible changes of daily life, until finally, at the story's conclusion, we see how profoundly the hero and heroine have changed. The stage adaptation is virtually a literal translation of the movie--the action moves quickly, with settings often changing on a dime, so ...