The Off The Wall Theatre continues its season with a satisfying coming-of-age musical. With all the holiday or fair inhabiting local stages this time of year, it's nice to see something different. The Off The Wall provides something different in the form of Lerner and Loewe's Gigi.
Liz Mistele stars as the title character – a girl coming-of-age and turn-of-the-century France. She is a free-spirited girl who is reluctant to stifle her individuality for the sake of stability. The iconoclastic view straining against established culture is cliched enough to have become stiflingly boring over the years. A character like this would have come across much more vibrantly when the musical debuted decades ago. Thankfully, the role is being handled by one of Milwaukee's most vibrance and dynamic stage talents. Mistele's energy in the role is very fresh, very powerful and very nuanced. Hello really has no business being this interesting. Mistele's youthful emotional rendering of a woman coming to terms with her place in the world is touching and heartfelt.
Jeremy Welter plays a troubled aristocrat who gradually comes to see her as more than a child. His character goes through a greater transformation than any other over the course of the story. Welter modulates that transformation well and believable rhythms over the course of the show's two hours onstage. As the story begins sees sympathetic as a man who isn't certain what he wants. In the course of a few musical numbers over the course of the show he comes to understand what he wants. Welter is emotionally endearing enough in the role to keep him interesting throughout.
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Also making a notable appearance here is Karl Miller in the role of an aging bachelor who is absolutely in love with Paris. Miller is capable of a nearly unsettling level of charisma onstage in the right role. This is the right role. He's ploys. He is confident. And even a little wistful. Not exactly centered to the plot, Miller's character serves as introduction and mood for the story which he handles remarkably well.
The cast is largely populated with Off The Wall regulars. One of those that I don't remember ever seeing before at Off The Wall (or anywhere else for that matter) is Alicia Rice. She's charming in the role of the paramour of the aristocrat who seems scarcely interested in him. She seems to have a clever sense of the comedy of the role. In brief appearances, she's a lot of fun as a socialite who can't stop socializing with everyone other then the man who shoes in a relationship with.
As the show is one that deals in a very deep way with the deep end of human emotion, it's a natural fit for Off The Wall. The intimate studio theater space amplifies the emotion felt in the music which might otherwise get lost in a bigger production.
Off The Wall Theatre's production of Gigi runs through December 31st at Off the Wall's space on 127 East Wells Street. For ticket reservations, call 414-327-3552.
