The revue Jacques Brel Is Alive & Well & Living in Paris debuted Off-Broadway on Jan. 22, 1968, at the Village Gate in Greenwich Village and ran 1,847 performances over the next four years, before transferring to Broadway for a brief run in September 1972. The show featured some two dozen of Brel’s songs, translated by Eric Blau and Mort Shuman and performed by a quartet of vocalists. When Blau first discovered Brel’s songs, he became infatuated with them, presenting some in the 1961 revue O, Oysters! Then Blau and Shuman came up with the idea of a whole night of Brel’s songs, and the two worked together to translate more lyrics and write new material to wrap around Brel’s music.
The original cast of four, directed by Moni Yakim, included Shuman, Shawn Elliott, Alice Whitfield, and Blau’s wife, Elly Stone. The Broadway cast included Stone, George Ball, Joe Masiell, and Henrietta Valor. Below is Stone singing “Marieke” in the 1975 film.
Singer Scott Walker’s first three solo albums each contains three of the Blau–Shuman translations, including his first solo single, “Jackie,” which hit #22 in 1967 on the UK charts. Fellow Brel disciple Marc Almond reached #17 in the UK with his 1991 cover of “Jackie.” David Bowie was yet another fan of the revue, listing the cast album among his 25 favorite albums, and released his cover of “Amsterdam” in 1973. Below is Walker performing “Jackie” for British TV.
The 1975 film adaptation added five new songs. Screenwriter Blau and director Denis Héroux also reconfigured the song order, dropped one woman, and added a chorus of hippies and eccentrics. The cast was led by Shuman and Stone, reprising their stage performances, and Masiell, from the show’s Broadway run. Brel, who had no part in the stage production, was recruited for a cameo, performing “Ne me quitte pas,” which you can watch below.
The show had its first Off-Broadway revival in 1974, directed by Shuman, with Jack Blackton, Barbara Gutterman, Stan Porter, and Henrietta Valor, who was in the Broadway cast. The 20th-anniversary concert at New York’s Town Hall, directed by Stone, featured Karen Akers, Shelley Ackerman, Elmore James, and Kenny Morris. The show returned to the Village Gate in 1992 for a limited run, again directed by Stone, with Gabriel Barre, Andrea Lynn Green, Joseph Neal, and Karen Saunders. In 1995, it played the West End with Michael Cahill, Alison Egan, Liz Greenaway, and Stuart Pendred.
In 2006, a revised production opened Off-Broadway, receiving Drama Desk, Drama League, and Outer Critics Circle nominations for best revival. It was directed by Gordon Greenberg and starred Robert Cuccioli, Natascia Diaz, Rodney Hicks, and Gay Marshall. That version ran in 2014 on London’s Off-West End with Gina Beck, Daniel Boys, David Burt, and Eve Polycarpou.