Paris
The Village Voice April 2008
Reviewed by Michael Feingold
Paris (1928) was Cole Porter's first Broadway hit -- except that so many of his songs were cut before the opening and replaced by interpolations that you could hardly call the result his. Enterprisingly, Musicals Tonight has excavated the pre-opening script and restored all the songs Porter wrote for it. Irritatingly, they've also felt the need to fiddle with the script and augment the score with numbers Porter wrote for other shows around the same time. Too much of a good thing, say I. But the songs are all wonderful to hear, and Jennifer Evans sings with appealing vivacity as the heroine Vivienne -- this is the one about the French actress who thinks she wants to marry a stuffy Boston Brahmin. You know.
