Plamondon palls in Paris: Cinderella story shunned by press
October 3, 2002 - The Montreal Gazette
PARIS - It could have been worse for Lucky Luc. Tuesday’s headlines could have read “Paris press pans Plamondon’s play.”
Instead, most French dailies decided to pass entirely on reviewing Cindy: Cendrillon 2002. Most that did cover the show were forced to wait until Wednesday, and then stuck to covering the stars that came to honour Luc Plamondon.
The show’s timing could have had a lot to do with it. Cindy began over half an hour after the 8:30 p.m. start time marked on the ticket. Given that, the intermission and a two-hour show, the only way for Parisian reporters to have filed anything would have been to leave at intermission.
Was that a clever manoeuvre by worried promoters or just the way things go on opening night? We’ll never know.
The popular Le Parisien and an online article by Agence France Presse were two of the few with anything to say about Cindy on Tuesday, while the cover of Le Figaro opted for a large picture of the rival production, C’etait Bonaparte.
The lion’s share of both Tuesday and Wednesday’s press went to Cindy’s two biggest competitors, Bonaparte and Le Petit Prince.
Pierre Vavasseur from Le Parisien concentrated on the hubbub: “If the word jostling has a meaning, it has to be applied to what happened last night at the Palais des Congres for the grand premiere of Cindy…Up to the end, the giant stairway saw a long string of celebrities march by, in which the incontestable star of the evening, Celine Dion, arrived at the last minute.”
Dion actually arrived through a side door to a strobe-light fanfare of flashbulbs not unlike those put on the Eiffel Tower for New Year’s Eve in 2000.
An online AFP piece about Dion’s presence was one of the first negative critiques Tuesday morning.
“In the wake of Notre-Dame de Paris, Cindy: Cendrillon 2002 could be lacking the catchy melodies that make (radio) hits, but often, oversimplified lyrics do reveal new voices,” AFP says, citing the voice of French rapper Jay, who “with a genuine vocal performance ... nearly surpasses the leading roles.”
Wednesday’s France Soir was one of the few papers with a dedicated review. Patrick Cabannes’s piece “Y’a pas l’ame ...” (There’s no soul) - a play on the name of the leading lady, Laam - found Plamondon “not in his best form” and “lacking emotion.”
“The lyrics often reach the bottom of the barrel and tend toward laughable,” Cabannes wrote. While he wondered what good Murray Head (of Jesus Christ Superstar fame) did for the piece, Cabannes also gave high marks to Jay.
“However, (Jay’s voice) doesn’t save the most important part: the lyrics and melodies of a show that has trouble getting going,” he wrote.
In the free daily Twenty Minutes, Julien Burnat and Stephane Leblanc concentrated on the hoopla, but their critique pulled few punches: “The songs never take off and we never get to dream. Monday night, the stars left with smiles that poorly hid their disappointment.”
One of those stars, Parisian actor Franck Dubosc, is noted as being one of the few celebrities who stayed until the end.
Plamondon - who in a Sunday interview said, “It all depends on the first night” - seems to have his work cut out for him.