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John Farrell Press Telegram Correspondent
A Stage Filled With The Spectacular
Family values are, in the long run, created by families themselves, and
not politicians who make their livings defending them.
That's what "La Cage aux Folles," the Jerry Herman hit Broadway musical that opened Musical Theatre West's 51st season on Saturday, is all about. It tells you just how powerful the musical is as an art form that the still-contentious issue of gay parents and homosexual families can produce huge laughs, plenty of emotional warmth and more than a little understanding, all to popular and powerful tunes.
"La Cage aux Folles" (French for "The Birdcage," the name of the club which is the center of the show and also a sly reference to gays, who are known as "birds" in French slang) was a huge hit on Broadway in 1983, winning six Tony awards, including best musical and best actor. It opened just over 20 years ago and is set for a revival this season.
Based on a French play
and a French-Italian film, "La Cage" was a ground-breaking musical two decades
ago, the first openly gay musical on Broadway (though the producer scrupulously
avoided anything as shocking as a gay kiss or caress during the production
-- things have changed a little since then), precursor to shows like "Hairspray"
and even "Rent," both of which benefited from the expanded horizons "La
Cage" provided.
Controversy still roils around whether a homosexual couple can raise a child effectively, or be an acceptable religious role model, but "La Cage" has already decided the issue, and, with two nearly sold-out performances in two days, it seems that there are a lot of musical comedy lovers who have also decided where they stand on the issue.
"La Cage" is sometimes called a "gay" musical, but the word "gay" is probably better applied as the old-fashioned word that means, or meant, tuneful, happy and upbeat. There is more sexual innuendo, and plain sex, in any episode of "NYPD Blue" or any sitcom you mention, than in the whole of "La Cage." You may find two male lovers walking hand-in-hand in the moonlight of the French Riviera, but there is nothing else in this story that isn't pure Broadway ballyhoo.
The story takes place on the stage of "La Cage aux Folles," a nightclub in St. Tropez, and in the adjoining apartment of Georges and Albin, the producer and star of the review that fills the nightclub. Georges (Norman Large) and Albin (David Engel) have lived together for 20 years, and raised Jean-Michel (David Burnham), Georges' son from a one-night heterosexual fling 24 years earlier. Albin is also ZaZa, the star of the review, a temperamental, talented and emotional man who is also loving, kind and devoted to his lover's son.
They live a happy life, though sometimes the club performers, women and men who dress in the outlandish drag-queen costumes of the review, add a little confusion. The real confusion comes when Jean-Michel returns home to announce he is getting married -- to a girl. It isn't his heterosexuality that is the surprise, but his choice: Anne (Samantha T. Lasch), the daughter of Edouard Dindon (Robert Alan Clink), France's most famous gay-hating politician. What's more, he wants to bring his fiancee's family to meet his family, but without Albin's presence.
You can figure out the complications, and the eventual happy ending, without any help here. Plot is not the point here. Instead, there are wonderful dance numbers, spectacular costumes and plenty of songs. including "We Are What We Are," an assertion of identity that is still powerful 20 years later.
ZaZa is the star of the cabaret, and of this show. Engel never quite goes over the top with his female impersonations, and manages the comedy with gentle elegance. It's a star turn, and he knows how to be that star. Large keeps Georges straightforward (and straight, when necessary), but he clearly loves both his son and his partner, Albin, and that tenderness is essential to the show's real heart.
Burnham's Jean-Michel is suitably young and impulsive, and Lasch manages the virginal Anne with charm. Ralph Cole Jr. has a lot of fun with the continuing troubles of Jacob, the maid-butler for Georges and Albin who wants to appear in their reviews. Clink has all the moves of an offended and self-important French politician, and Lois Bourgon has a lot of fun as his repressed wife. Kathryn Skatula is charming in the small but essential role of Jacqueline, the restaurateur who is the catalyst for the play's denouement.
This is a show that depends on its chorus, called "Les Cagelles" and featuring 10 tremendously talented singer-dancers in gender-bending roles (only at curtain call do they appear in their original genders. Louis Becker (as Mercedes), Mat Bezmarevich (as Phaedra), Scott Bleazard (as Odette), Penny Fisher (as Angelique), Craig Louis (as Dermah), Jon-Paul Mateo (as Chantal), Rick Twombley (as Nicole), Scott Weber (as Lo Singh), Chad Borden (as Hanna) and Kaci Wilson (as Bitelle) dance and sing throughout the extraordinary production. The sets aren't much, to be honest, but the costumes glitter and sway and shimmer.
Director Nick DeGruccio makes the big production
numbers bigger than life, but allows the small moments of real emotion their
own equality. Michael Borth's musical direction is perfectly suited to his
talented cast, and choreographer Lee Martino has created some stunning dance
numbers, from ballroom to tap, for the show.
11/5/2003
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