Je ne sais quoi[author-post-rating] (2/5 stars)

What might now be called ‘cabaret’ was a very different experience in 1890s France. Forget raunchy repartee, damaged divas and any trace of glitter – Nathalie Joly’s Je ne sais quoi, a loving homage to La Belle Epoque’s then-legendary cafe concert artiste Yvette Guilbert, is all wide eyes, quick winks and slowly lifted skirts that reveal a daring glimpse of ankle. A work in two parts, Episode 1 of Je ne sais quoi  includes lengthy extracts from the impassioned and intriguing correspondence between the father of psychoanalysis Sigmund Freud and the fiercely intelligent and ever self-improving Guilbert to bolster its musical content with a semblance of narrative structure. The unfortunate thing about Je ne sais quoi is that, whilst its works on the level of a quite immersive history lesson, a faithful reconstruction of Gilbert’s now unfamiliar, and therefore vaguely quirky, style of performance, overall, it’s a strangely inaccessible and sedate piece of work, too caught up in the rather stuffy trappings of its time period to reach out and grab us in the here and now.

It would be unfair to completely condemn Joly for the dearth of theatrical innovation, because Je ne sais quoi is ostensibly a musical presentation – the only problem being that the songs, once risque, now feel remote. Yvette and her pianist demonstrate an enjoyably tempestuous relationship; sometimes he’s Freud, whose relationship with Guilbert was certainly intense if not necessarily romantic, other times he’s an older lover, a bitter ex, or simply a reluctant participant in Guilbert’s act. The pair perform fragments from various letters which form a vague, unwieldy strand of narrative that threads the songs tentatively together. It’s sporadically interesting. Freud is obsessed with the idea of the ‘artist’ and our emotional response to them, hence his fascination with his ‘dear Yvette’. How is it, he asks, that an artist can offer an entirely ‘other’ persona to an audience, why is that we cry during sad ballads, or fall in love with chanteuses, even though we know we’re only really in love with the song?  Simple questions, you might think, but in the context of the Edinburgh Fringe, it almost feels relevant.

Whilst the songs are sung in French, the language barrier itself isn’t the culprit here, even if, despite the promised English subtitles, translations only appear every so often. In her best moments, Joly transcends language with a facial expression or a held note, but the fault lies not with a lack of translation but rather the mostly uninspiring content. La Belle Epoque it may have been, but we don’t get any sense of excitement, frisson or forward motion that must have characterised that time and so, Je ne sais quoi offers little more than a sweet-natured but ultimately dry hour.

Je ne sais quoi played at Institut Français d’Ecosse as part of the Edinburgh Fringe Festival.