Theatre 2024: La Cage Aux Folles @ Stratford Festival

My husband Rich and I will be going to the Stratford Festival twice this year, taking advantage of their 2 for 1 ticket sale offered at the beginning of the season.  Our first show is a revival of the musical La Cage Aux Folles, which is based on the 1973 French play of the same name by Jean Poiret (with an anglicized translation of “Cage of Madwomen”).  The play’s initial run lasted five years with Poiret himself in the lead role.  In addition to the musical, two movies were also based on this source material including a 1978 French/Italian co-production of the same name (with an anglicized title Birds of a Feather), and a 1996 American version titled “The Birdcage” with an all-star cast including Robin Williams, Nathan Lane, Gene Hackman, Diane Wiest and a very young Calista Flockhart.

First opened on Broadway in 1983, the plot of the musical La Cage Aux Folles deals with Georges, the gay owner of the titular night club in Saint-Tropez and his long-time partner, the temperamental Albin, who stars in the nightly drag show using the stage name Zaza.  Together, the pair raised Georges’ son Jean-Michel who was the result of a brief “experimental” affair. Now grown-up, Jean-Michel wishes to marry Anne but fears that her ultra-conservative parents, including her father who is in politics and shies from bad publicity, would not approve given Georges and Albin’s sexual orientation and lifestyle.  Hijinks ensue when Anne and her parents come for dinner and Jean-Michel is desperate to be able to present them with a “normal family”.  Rather insensitively, he pleads with Georges to tone down the “gayness” of his home décor and to hide Albin, requesting that Jean-Michel’s biological mother (who has not been present in his life) be invited to dinner to act as the matriarch of the family instead.  Initially hurt and insulted, Albin offers to pretend to be the male “Uncle Al” and hilariously takes lessons on how to act more masculinely.  When the mother bails on the commitment, Albin steps up and dresses in drag to meet Anne’s family.  Adding to the farcical humour are the antics of Albin’s ultra-flamboyant transvestite “maid” Jacob.

We actually watched the musical version of La Cage Aux Folles back in 2012 but curiously, neither of us have any firm memories of that experience.  Our knowledge of the story stems more from watching the French movie, as well as The Birdcage where Robin Williams provides his usual manic, scene-stealing improvisations in the role of Georges (although for the movie, he is renamed Armand).  To figure out why, I looked back upon my writeup of the 2012 musical and saw that I panned it, faulting the stunt-casting of George Hamilton to play Georges leading to a bland production that lacked emotion.  I had few issues with the show itself as well.

By contrast, we were blown away by the performances of Sean Arbuckle as Georges and Steve Ross as Albin, who were extremely funny when they needed to be but also tender, loving and sympathetic when thrust into an impossible situation.  Their singing voices were magnificent, especially when Ross sang what would traditionally be thought of as the eleven-o’clock number “I am what I am” to close off the first act.  He exuded the hurt and pain that he felt at being asked by his family to hide his true identity.  Albin started off slowly but ends up defiantly declaring “Life's not worth a damn 'til you can say, ‘Hey world, I am what I am!’”.  It is a reprise of a lighter, playful version of the song titled “We are what we are”, sung by the drag-queen chorus the Cagelles as part of the cabaret show held at the night club.  They proudly trumpeted the joy of being in drag—“We love how it feels, putting on heels, causing confusion”.  Arbuckle showed off his singing chops with “Song on the Sand” when he reminisced about meeting Albin and declared his ongoing love for him—" I hear La da da da … And I'm young and in love.” That “la da da da” refrain reminds me of the love song from Hadestown and was possibly an inspiration for it.  Another highlight of this show was the hilarious, over-the-top campiness of the butler/maid Jacob, played by Chris Vergara, who shrieked, preened and postured in all of his scene-stealing appearances.

There were also fabulous costumes worn in the dance numbers of Les Cagelles as they performed various cabaret numbers, both as solos and in their ensemble numbers. A recurring joke involved an intimidating whip-wielding drag-queen and her production manager boyfriend who appeared more and more injured as the show progresses.   All of this made this rendition of the musical so much more enjoyable and memorable than the one we saw back in 2012.  This show had humour and heart and made you care for all the characters.  

Unfortunately, the issues from the book and songs of the musical remain.  There are some beautiful songs including the ones mentioned above, as well as “Anne on my arm” which the son sings in declaring his affection for his beloved, and “Look Over There” which Georges sings to remind his son of all that Albin has done for him.  The problem is there are too few songs in the setlist, and the same ones are reprised multiple times.  There are also too many extraneous characters, including townspeople, restaurant owners and a fisherman that wandered purposelessly through the stage twice, who don’t add anything important to the story.  Nevertheless, this was a wonderful show that broke barriers and bolstered the gay community in terms of representation, celebrating the themes of acceptance and being your true self.

For the most part, the plot in the various versions of this show is the same, including the hilarious scene of trying to teach Albin/Albert how to eat in a manly fashion.  But it is interesting to compare the differences that may have been triggered by changes in live vs filmed performance, language, culture, and the timeframe when each version came out.  In each case and sometimes inexplicably, each version felt the need to rename the major characters. Georges became the more Italian-sounding “Renato” in the French/Italian film that required Italian co-production because no French producer wanted to wade into gay plotline which was still considered controversial in the 70’s.  He was renamed Armand in The Birdcage, which also moved the setting from Saint-Tropez to Miami Beach, Florida and called Albin the more American-sounding “Albert”.  The son Laurent became Jean-Michel in the musical and Val in the Birdcage while his fiancée’s name changed from Muriel to Andréa to Anne to Barbara through the various versions.

A major plot point changed between the musical compared to the play and movies.  In these other versions, the biological mother finally did show up, leading to the ruse of Albin playing the role in drag to be revealed.  In each case, the fiancée’s father demands to know how many mothers does the son have?  In the earlier French film, it is Renato (aka Georges) who says, “Just one”, indicating Albin.  The son never stands up for the person who raised him, which always seemed a bit cold and insensitive to me.  This is rectified in The Birdcage when the son is the one who makes this acknowledgement.  Because the biological mother never arrives in the musical, this scene plays out differently.  A fallen wig gives Albin away and mayhem ensues leading Jean-Michel to seemingly apologize to Anne’s father.  But this is a fake-out because the apology is actually directed to Albin for not appreciating all that he had done in raising and being a true “mother” to Jean-Michel.  All the versions share the same delightful resolution to the conflict which I won’t spoil here.