SHOW REVIEW

or the path to the apartment where Amélie (Eileen Leyva) lives, plus a larger lower level with retractable and reversible panels at the back.

These panels allowed the lower level, with the right furnishings (audience members remarked on the complex system of multicolored tape markers), to represent several locations: Amélie’s workplace at the Two Windmills Café, a Métro station with a photo booth, or the adult novelty store “Secret Désirs Boutique d’Amour.” The last is not correct French, but it doesn’t have to be to ensure the audience gets the point. Most did, laughing uproariously as one panel revolved to reveal a display of Playboys and sex toys.

Though the musical is written in English, with occasional French expressions, almost all the actors make an effort to sing and speak in French accents. This contrasts with the 2017 Broadway production, where Phillipa Soo performed in her own American accent.

In the playbill, Knittle said of the story, “Community was the first word that popped into my mind.” A play populated with a found family of quirky characters, each with their own emotional struggles, resonates strongly at a time following on the heels of the pandemic and widespread social isolation.

In particular, Amélie, imaginative and intelligent as she is, owes a lot of her diffi-