The Cruncher

While bright young (26) French Choreographer-Dancer Roland Petit was flashing and stomping through his sexy Les Ballets de Paris hit, Carmen, on Broadway last year (TIME, Oct. 17,1949), some other ideas were writhing around in his head.

One of them was a childhood memory: his father had once ordered an enormous red divan for his Paris bistro, hoping to attract a fancier clientele. When it arrived, it was too big for the bistro, so his father punched a hole in the wall of Roland's adjoining bedroom to make it fit. At night, young Roland could see a little into the cafe; he remembered particularly one regular customer, a "beautiful woman," of whom he could seldom see more than a white arm and shoulder. Another idea in Petit's head came from watching a performance of South Pacific with his Carmen, tiny, bob-haired Ballerina Renee Jeanmaire. He had come out impressed with the gaiety of U.S. musicomedy; she had come out sighing, "I would like to sing like Mary Martin." Somehow, Petit wanted to put a bit of all of those ideas together and produce a ballet with songs.

He had had "some melodies" in his head, but he could neither read nor write music; so he bought a recording machine and sang his songs into it. Musical friends helped put his songs on paper, added full lyrics. Eager little "Zizi" Jeanmaire ("Sure I can sing") looked them over, sang her song into the recording machine. Says Petit: "She sounded awful." She went to work with a pianist, and Petit began planning the choreography. Last week, back on Broadway for another season, Petit sidetracked Carmen to put on the result: La Croqueuse de Diamants (The Diamond Cruncher). Right off he had a new hit.

First-night fans saw a brilliant revolvable set of a little Paris street corner and its bistro. In his scenario, Petit turned the "beautiful woman" of his childhood into a jewel thief who steals diamonds "not to wear or sell, but to eat, like children crunch candy." The first the audience saw of her was a slim white arm and shoulder, snaking out through a hole in the wall to lift the wallets of passersby. When Ballerina Renee Jeanmaire finally turned up in full view (in sexy black tights) to sing & dance her bit ("I'm a cruncher of diamonds, I can't do without this vitamin . . ."), she brought the house down.

There was plenty of good choreography in Petit's individual, graceful, semi-acrobatic style. But La Croqueuse, with its first-class songs (including one sung by Petit himself), was pretty close to musicomedy too. That is a combination that appeals to Petit more & more. He thinks he would like to do a writing-composing-producing-choreographic job on a real U.S. musicomedy, says "Now I know a little bit how."

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