Review: Pam MacKinnon and Phillipa Soo Make AMELIE Flippantly Free-Spirited Fun

"Bursting with joy" isn't exactly a phrase commonly used to describe the exceptional directorial work of Pam Mackinnon. The woman who guided the premiere of Bruce Norris' tensely comic CLYBOURNE PARK and gobsmacked audiences with a freshly destructive vision of Edward Albee's WHO'S AFRAID OF VIRGINIA WOOLF? is better known for drawing out dramatic shades than working with whimsy.

But with the flippantly free-spirited new musical Amelie, based on French director Jean-Pierre Jeunet's same-named 2001 romantic comedy, MacKinnon enhances the quirks of the oddball text by bookwriter Craig Lucas and lyricists Nathan Tysen and Daniel Messé, set to Messé's indie-style music, with a delightful array of surprising, slightly surreal visuals applied with a strong hand that keeps the whimsy from floating out of control.

Which is fortunate, because Amelie tends to meander about a bit when it comes to storytelling and song placement, and yet moments like when the title character's desire to follow in the good-deed-doing footsteps of Princess Diana cues a sudden pop number by an actor playing Elton John (Randy Blair), and a travelogue sequence featuring a giant garden gnome (David Andino, who also plays a blind beggar who uses his folding cane vaudeville style for dance numbers) come off as reasonable segues for this low-key charmer.

Phillipa Soo, whose habit of radiating warmth as the leading lady of the Off-Broadway mounting of NATASHA, PIERRE & THE GREAT COMET OF 1812 helped lead to her Tony nominated turn in HAMILTON, plays the young Parisian introvert with sly intelligence that welcomes you to her improvisational life.

We first meet her as a girl played by Savvy Crawford, who not only possesses solid singing and acting chops but also bears a remarkable resemblance to her leading lady. After cartoonish episodes involving her domineering doctor father (Manoel Felciano), neurotic home-schooling mother (the always funny and entertaining Alison Cimmet) and the goldfish she calls her best friend (Paul Whitty), we get a sense of why she became an imaginative, but emotionally isolated, adult.

Amelie works in a café populated by an engaging bunch. There's the owner Suzanne (Harriett D. Foy), a former trapeze artist who left the circus after her boyfriend dropped her, in more ways than one. Though she declined a second date with insensitive plumber Joseph (Witty) he still hangs around because his eye is on the hypochondriac tobacconist Georgette (Alyse Alan Louis). Waitress Gina (Maria-Christina Oliveras) is hesitant to seek romance again after her cheating husband died in a plane crash. Their interactions are all observed by Hipolito (Blair), the sort of distinguished-looking unpublished writer that no café is complete without.

Amelie creatively devises ways to help bring some happiness into each of their lives. When the time comes around to address her own happiness, it involves another sweet loner, Nino (appealingly awkward Adam Chanler-Berat), who works in a sex shop and collects the discarded, torn up pics left on the ground near a metro station photo booth.

Set and costume designer David Zinn and lighting designers Jane Cox and Mark Barton present storybook visuals bathed primarily in lovely shades of blue, helping to embrace Amelie as a warm and clever fantasy that flirtatiously winks at the audience. You just might be inspired to wink back.

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