André-Philippe Gagnon doing his Mick Jagger impression in Toronto last week.The Globe and Mail
There's no shortage of water in an ocean, but none of it is to drink. In the same way, André-Philippe Gagnon, though he is of 400 voices, has little if anything to articulate. Don't get me wrong, the dazzling Quebec impersonator is a charming and captivating man in person. It's just that English isn't his natural language, and as he attempts to chat up his new revue ( The One-Man Hit Parade, opening Wednesday at Toronto's Canon Theatre), it's his sounds and animated gestures that are the most expressive.
"First, you stick out your butt, then you make flying motions like a wounded chicken, then you puff up your lips and then you strut around like a rooster," Gagnon explains, showing off his comic deconstruction of Mick Jagger, the rubbery rock star.
"Then I'll do something on Woodstock," he continues, offering a taste of his medley-based history of rock 'n' roll, the centrepiece of his show. "After Joe Cocker and Santana, I'll go into the Guess Who, with Burton Cummings.
"These eyes, cry every night for you," Gagnon begins to sing, uninhibited and fully, as if he were onstage, not at a bustling diner. Lunchtime patrons take notice as he comically croons away in our booth, crossing his eyes clownishly as he reaches for the slippery notes. "These arms, long to hold you, aaahhhgain...."
Until that moment, I had considered Gagnon to be a talented but simple and slick throwback from the 1980s - all Vegas sheen, big-shouldered sports jacket and blown-dry hair. It has been a quarter of a century since he blew away Just for Laughs audiences with his multivoiced trip around We Are the World. The epic anthem that had done wonders for MTV, Ethiopia and Lionel Richie would terrifically boost Gagnon's career as well: The singing impersonator would go on to do Carson, host the Junos, stretch out for 33 consecutive nights at Montreal's Théâtre St-Denis, hold the stage for six weeks at Casino de Paris, and so on and so on and so on.
Gagnon is 47 years old now, still matinee-idol handsome and in trim shape. Watching him morph into various characters across the table, one is struck not by his mimicking expertise, but by his natural clownish antics - that is to say, clowning in the classic physical sense, not the big-shoed buffoon perpetrated by Misters Barnum and Bailey. Famous for his mutable voice, you suspect Gagnon could work in pantomime as well.
While Gagnon speaks predictably and promotionally about his new show - "The combination of the musical memories and humour," he says, "it's something that seems to work well with the audience" - he is much more in his element when in character. And so, there's a twinkle in his blue eyes as he channels Joe Cocker, all stiff-jointed and monstrous. His bass-voiced Barry White is as sweet and low as the sugar substitute next to him on the table. And his boggling human-saxophone shtick? It's quite incredible, with Gagnon taking a child's delight in making a deep reed noise that he knows will fascinate anyone who hears it.
If his new show is called The One-Man Hit Parade, Gagnon is not alone for the interview. Sitting in is a publicist (who randomly murmurs profoundly when the star utters banalities such as, "I'm really happy with this new show") and one of the show's writers. George Reinblatt is a talented guy who has written for Rick Mercer and was responsible for the great, spoofy hit Evil Dead: The Musical. But his job for this interview is to interject with clarifications and explanations whenever Gagnon begins to struggle.
"It's really cool," Reinblatt blares at one point, with all the naturalness of an infomercial. "It's high-tech." He doesn't make eye contact when he speaks; the whole setting is near surreal.
To be honest, I'm not so interested in the technical aspects that Reinblatt blows on about: The giant screen that sets the moods as the decades pass, from Bill Haley up to Guns N' Roses and Kid Rock, or the giant "aPhone" thing that allows audience members to pick a specific song and voice from Gagnon's vocal bag of tricks.
No, what is of interest is Gagnon, who, when animated, comes off like the magical, wordless jesters of the Cirque du Soleil. He says he has seen most of the Cirque in Vegas, but doesn't actually respond much to a question of artful, traditional clowning. When asked about Jimmy Fallon, the talk-show host and comedian who does some fairly amazing music-based impersonations himself, he says only: "Yes, he does a very good Jerry Seinfeld."
Seinfeld? Huh? You haven't seen Fallon do the history of rap? Or his amazing Neil Young?
"No, I haven't," Gagnon answers, smiling as he explains that he doesn't watch Fallon faithfully but that he does a version of Young himself. "I wanna live, I wanna give," he begins in the singer's high-pitched wail, scrunching up his face, "I've been a miner for a cart of gold...."
You don't say.
André-Philippe Gagnon's One-Man Hit Parade plays Toronto's Canon Theatre Dec. 1 to 5 (416-872-1212).