The one-man-band Hershey Felder is back at The Wallis with a new show, A Paris Love Story. Actor/pianist/writer Felder has won world-wide fame and fortune for his previous shows about such famous composers as Gershwin, Bernstein, Beethoven, and Liszt. Now he has trained his sights on Claude Debussy, one of his childhood heroes, and brought his life to the stage in a warm, loving way. Felder walks in Debussy’s footsteps here, addressing the audience in two alternating voices: his own and that of the French master himself. It makes for an engrossing and clever narrative, one which avoids the “then I wrote” trap of so many bio-dramas. Felder’s attachment to Debussy runs deep: his respect for the latter’s music borders on the worshipful. He related personally to Debussy’s life as well: both lost their mothers at a young age and struggled to become professional musicians (though Felder never forgets that Debussy was a genius and he himself a mere mortal). And of course both of them loved Paris; in fact, that’s where Felder lives today, with his wife Kim Campbell, the first female Prime Minister of Canada. Felder also designed the play’s Parisian set, two curved bridges symbolizing the Left and Right Banks of the city. Sitting between them at center-stage is a grand piano on which Felder plays, gloriously, some of Debussy’s well-known music. In the background various images of Paris flit by, courtesy of Christopher Ash’s projection designs. The overall look of the show is not only effective but, at times, quite astounding. In Felder’s hands the portrait of Debussy becomes clearer and stronger over the course of his 90-minute show. Debussy, we learn, had to fight his entire life to earn respect as a composer. His quest for an unblemished, truthful musical language ran counter to the German-influenced (Mahler, Wagner, Strauss) music of the day. He was a sonic pioneer whose experiments paved the way for such modernists as Schoenberg, Copeland and Stravinsky—and even for such jazz artists as Thelonius Monk, Charlie Parker, and Miles Davis. As a person, Debussy was troubled: his childhood was unhappy, most of his peers disliked him, he drank and was a womanizer, but despite all that he managed to write some of the most beautiful and moving music mankind has ever known. Thanks to Felder we are reminded of this in a vivid and compelling way.
