Buckle up for return of Moulin’s can-can do attitude!
DIAMONDS are Liisi LaFontaine’s best friend in more ways than one. The Los Angeles native used the number made famous by Marilyn Monroe as her audition song — and it helped her win her latest West End role.
On Monday, she begins rehearsals for the London production of Broadway smash success Moulin Rouge!, which starts previews at the Piccadilly Theatre on November 12. The eye-popping show, with a range of pop songs including Lady Marmalade, Nature Boy and Your Song, is set in Paris in 1899.
LaFontaine plays Satine, a can-can dancer and courtesan (the role created by Nicole Kidman in Baz Luhrmann’s classic 2001 film) who may look voluptuous but is suffering from consumption.
‘She’s had a rough life and now, as she’s reaching the peak and the pinnacle of success, she’s battling this disease,’ LaFontaine told me as we sipped mineral water (later swapped for a Starbucks latte) in the Mandrake Hotel in Fitzrovia, a boutique spot as deliberately decadent as the Moulin Rouge itself.
‘Life is fragile when you’re young — you think you have all the time in the world,’ she said. ‘The show has all this glitz and extravagance, but it’s underpinned by how important it is to love while you’re here.’ It’s a coming home, of sorts, for Ms LaFontaine. She played Deena Jones, the Diana Ross figure in Dreamgirls, at the Savoy Theatre in 2016. At just about the same time Jamie Bogyo — who plays Christian, her impoverished American lover in Moulin Rouge! — arrived in London to study at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art. Ewan McGregor played that role in Luhrmann’s picture. I have a vague recollection of sampling some champagne, straight from a magnum, with McGregor and Kidman in the back of a stretch limousine when the film premiered at Cannes in 2001. We were young(ish) then...what can I say? I also remember the first time I saw the musical on Broadway, at the Al Hirschfeld in 2019. The theatre’s front of house, lobby and auditorium had been decorated in shades of red by scenic designer Derek McLane: rude rouge all over the place.
LAFONTAINE was 22 when she did Dreamgirls in London. It launched her career and, while she had a great time, it was sometimes tough. She told me she got tonsilitis ‘seven times’ during the run.
The 27-year-old travelled back to London a week ago in good health — even though she’d just had those pesky tonsils removed. ‘Fully healed!’ she trilled.‘There’s nothing that can emulate the amount of energy it takes to do a show like this,’ she said, referring to her new project. ‘Especially eight times a week.’
Director Alex Timbers is ‘excited’ about working with his new leading lady. ‘She has huge star charisma, and depth and complexity,’ he said down the phone from New York.
Of his leading man, Timbers said Bogyo had a look of ‘guileless innocence’ which he was seeking in Christian. He also liked the fact that Bogyo, like his character, is a writer. In fact, the actor’s first play, Safe Space, is expected to premiere in London this year.
Bogyo studied at Yale before going to Rada. Moulin Rouge! will mark his professional stage debut. He talked fondly of being taken to countless shows in New York, where his father was a Broadway general manager, when he was growing up.
He declared that ‘musicals in general have this magic about them, but this is a show dialled to you times ten’. LaFontaine, meanwhile, said Moulin Rouge! reminded her of a layer cake. ‘When you take a bite, there are so many flavours!’
Well, I’m desperate for another slice. I was lucky enough to see it three times in New York. And I’m looking forward to catching it again at the Piccadilly Theatre.