Word: cocos
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...Coco is more of a bore than a bomb. Opening night was like a disastrous party. Everyone who was anyone was there, primed for some kind of theatrical night of nights. Dramatically, the champagne was flat, the hors d'oeuvres tasted of sawdust, and the small talk on-and offstage sagged into yawns...
...great Parisian designer who is now a fairly fabulous 86 years old. What went wrong? The initial concept was wrong. The focal point of the fashion business is a dress. In and of itself, a dress is not dramatic. A parade of animated mannequins such as one gets in Coco does not make dresses dramatic either. A group of women milling about onstage always looks rather like a herd, and that is scarcely dramatic...
What about Coco's love life? Her lovers are flashed on a screen and mumble a few words of endearment. No one knows what they feel about Coco or what Coco feels about them. These are virtually spectral relationships. One is left with Coco herself, a spunky, ardent, nononsense, one-woman feminist liberation front, who somehow seems to be more passionately and intimately involved with her models than with any man in her life...
...with two sets, Beaton ended up designing 253 Chanel-style costumes for the show (total costume cost: $150,000) including 11 that will be dismantled during the performance, as Coco rips them apart and starts all over again. The musical's finale is a fashion show that features Chanel designs spanning 1918 to 1959. "It's like a Busby Berkeley number," says a member of the troupe. "The whole set is transformed into mirrors, platforms and rings going in different directions. Everything is turning and flashing at once...
Beyond the Lerners and Previns and Beatons-even beyond the real Chanel -it still remains very much Hepburn's show. Of Coco's 2½ hours, she is onstage all but twelve minutes. Although a mellower Hepburn than the imperious Kate of earlier days, she is still tough. "I think I'm feisty!" she agrees, "but people have just gotten used to me. Now that I've become like the Statue of Liberty or something. Now that I've come to an age where they think I might disappear-they're fond...