Out of the Box: Hair Today, Amélie Tomorrow

Turning Amélie into a stage musical might appear to be a fool’s mission, given that the indie French film was a surprising hit in 2001 largely because of the movie’s tone and the charms of its breakout star, Audrey Tautou. But Out of the Box (OOB) Theatre Company founder Samantha Eve thinks the recent translation works out just fine and also improves upon the original.

“The film was about the aesthetic, the colors, the tone, the look. It was visually just so different and interesting,” Eve admitted. “But the musical allows you get deeper into the story. We can explore the characters, what drives them, and get into their motivations much more through the music.”

That story is a fanciful modern-day fairytale that finds the curious but painfully shy Amélie turning Parisian streets into a world of her own imagination while secretly orchestrating small but surprising acts of kindness to bring joy to those around her. But when her own possible romance beckons, she discovers she has to fight against her own fears to make the connection.

To be sure, there is also some stage magic at play in the theatrical adaptation. As in the earlier productions in Berkeley and on Broadway, OOB is employing puppets to the “surreal reality, and breaking into fantasy which is easy to do with film, but we need something to show the clear departure from reality.” OOB, in fact, is upping the ante, turning the garden gnome and Elton John characters into giant puppets, which, along with all of the other ones, are being created by UCSB whiz Christina McCarthy. “The puppets are amazing,” Eve enthused. “There are no words. They’re just fantastic.”

Although it charmed the critics out of town, Amélie didn’t get great reviews on Broadway – The New York Times calling it “aggressively cute and quirky,” while The Guardian termed it “a creme brulée of a musical: sweet but ultimately bland” – and the show closed soon after failing to receive any anticipated Tony nominations in the spring of 2017. But that didn’t dispel Eve’s desire to take on the work.

“A lot of the shows that we’ve done before don’t do well on Broadway. Putting them in a big theater loses a lot of the intimacy, because they focus more on special effects rather than what’s on the page and the connection to the actors and the stories. You can’t get much more intimate than Center Stage (where Amélie plays weekends November 9-18). We’re pretty much in your lap. So you are invested. You root for the characters and want them to succeed.”

What might make that tricky is another of the show’s strengths, Eve said, that “there’s no typical bad guy, a villain the protagonist fights against to get what they want. Amélie is her own worst enemy. But that’s what makes it so human and relatable, something everyone can connect to.”

On the other hand, Eve herself will be doing everything she can to make the character come across – besides directing, she’s starring in the title role, her first time doing a big part in one of her plays in quite a while. “It’s one of those roles I just love and connect to and really wanted to play,” she explained. Indeed, besides her head and heart, Eve has also invested her hair. “I just got it all cut, not quite as short as hers (Tautou in the film). But I told the stylist to go for it. She’s French and loves the movie, so she really got into it.”