Can-Can

Can‐Can (1953), a musical comedy by Abe Burrows (book), Cole Porter (music, lyrics). [ Shubert Theatre, 892 perf.] A young, straitlaced judge, Aristide Forestier (Peter Cookson), is assigned to investigate stories of scandalous can‐can dancing at a Montmartre café. He falls in love both with the dancing and with the café's proprietress, La Mome Pistache (Lilo), helps legalize the dance, and marries the lady. At the same time, one of the dancers, Claudine (Gwen Verdon), has a duel fought over her by her two suitors. Notable songs: Allez‐vous‐en; Can‐Can; C'est Magnifique; I Love Paris; It's All Right with Me. Although the Cy Feuer and production opened to indifferent notices and its French star was respectfully received, the real hit of the evening was the superb dancing and comic artistry of Verdon in a merely supporting role. Within a few months much of Porter's score had won recognition, adding to the play's box office appeal. A major revival in 1980 was unsuccessful.

Famous for its licentious connotations, the dance none the less had its origins in the chahut, a very modest and respectable social dance invented by Monsieur Masarié in 1830. Within fifteen years, however, it had moved into the French music halls where it emphasized the immodest display of leg and undergarment, so much so that it was eventually banned by the authorities. It is an exhilarating, high-kicking dance in 2/4 time. Offenbach featured the can-can in his operas, most notably in Orpheus in the Underworld, and Toulouse-Lautrec immortalized the dance and its demi-monde dancers in his drawings of the Moulin Rouge. In ballet, it can be found as the climax to two of Massine's best-known works, Boutique fantasque and Gaîté parisienne. It was also the subject of the 1953 Broadway musical Can-Can.