La Cage in Quotes
Among the questions raised by the current revival of La Cage aux Folles is how the show's once daring depiction of a gay marriage will come across in a time of Will & Grace and Queer Eye for the Straight Guy, when gay characters, both real and fictional, are commonplace on screen, stage, and television. In today's column, I thought I'd look back on just a little of what was said in the '80s about the intentions and achievements of the original La Cage.
La Cage's book writer was Harvey Fierstein, and there can be no question that Fierstein's Torch Song Trilogy, which won the Tony earlier in the year La Cage opened and was, like La Cage, about a drag-queen performer, helped pave the way for the musical. Fierstein's epic play wasn't the only antecedent; there were also such works as A Chorus Line, Victor/Victoria, Tootsie, and even the one-night Broadway musical flop Dance a Little Closer, in which two supporting male characters were married.
The long-running Parisian non-musical play by Jean Poiret that was the musical's source was a surefire farce, but it was enhanced in the musical version. As Fierstein told New York Magazine, "The biggest change we made was to make the characters more human, not those ridiculous farce characters in the French play-we wanted more depth, more dimension, more heart."
In his review of La Cage in The New York Post, critic Clive Barnes noticed that "Fierstein has somewhat deepened the original Poiret, chiefly by making it a story about personal acceptance and human dignity." Of course, one must not overlook Jerry Herman's songs "I Am What I Am," "Song on the Sand," "Look Over There", which obviously provided much of the additional emotional content.
Fierstein asked in Time Magazine, "If a gay show is a hit and doesn't make a statement, what's the point?" And part of what made La Cage special the first time around was that it existed as a big, glitzy, commercial musical comedy that also managed to send a message, and a daring one for the time. As Arthur Laurents told The L.A. Times before the New York opening, "The subject of two men living together is still dicey."
If the subject matter was risky, the show's message upheld the most traditional family values of love, honor, and fidelity. Fierstein told the New York Times: "What we want people to go home with is a reaffirmation of relationships....A family does not have to be blood relations; it's people who come together and take care of each other. If I had to sum up what the show is about in one phrase it would be: 'Honor thy father and thy mother'."
In a lengthy pre-opening piece in New York Magazine, writer Ross Wetzsteon declared, "Here is a musical celebrating not just monogamy and family but a world in which children want their parents' approval before getting married." And there were even more serious political overtones to that message. Fierstein told New York, "We have to get the concept out of our minds that love and commitment and family are heterosexual rights. They're not. They're people's rights."
While the stars of the La Cage revival, Gary Beach and Daniel Davis, aren't likely to feel the slightest concern about taking on the roles of gay lovers, at least one of the original stars expressed certain qualms about doing so. Gene Barry, who created the role Davis will play, told Time Magazine, "In rehearsal, George and I didn't look at each other as a man or a woman, but as someone we dearly loved. If I ever had a problem, I'd just think of my own wife." Barry told The Daily News, "It's not really a homosexual part, in the sense that we are playing two people who love each other who are involved in a family relationship."
How successful was the original La Cage at achieving its goals? Gerald Clarke wrote in Time Magazine that the show is "almost certain to become the first successful gay musical." Wetzsteon felt even more strongly about the show's achievements: "When Albin belts out his defiant 'I Am What I Am,' the audience isn't witnessing just another showstopper so much as participating in a moment of cultural history. Out-of-the-closet pathos has beeen acceptable to Broadway audiences at least since A Chorus Line, but in La Cage, there's out-of-the-closet pride."
But another comment by Wetzsteon indicates that the show was obliged to tread delicately: "La Cage also differs from the movie in that homosexuality is presented less as a matter of gesture and decor than as an expression of affection. Not passion, not yet---Broadway is still a long way from its first gay kiss, and the fact that the two men are middle-aged makes their relationship more palatable to theater audiences."
New York Times critic Frank Rich was harder on this aspect of the show, perceiving in the musical a lack of daring: "La Cage is the first Broadway musical ever to give center stage to a homosexual love affair---but don't go expecting an earthquake," he began his opening-night review. "The show is the schmaltziest, most old-fashioned major musical Broadway has seen since Annie.....In the book scenes, unlike the songs, Georges and Albin are so relentlessly square that they become homogenized homosexuals in the manner of the scrupulously genteel black people of Hollywood's Guess Who's Coming to Dinner era.....The men who perform the dances are skilled as drag artists, yet not to the point where they achieve that real androgynous sexiness which might challenge a heterosexual audience's received definitions of gender."
Such sentiments were repeated when the show opened at the London Palladium three years after its Broadway premiere. Critic Irving Wardle wrote, "I suspect that one reason for the huge Broadway success is that it domesticated homosexuality to the state of orthodox family life." Milton Shulman maintained, "The relationship between Albin and his lover Georges is handled with such careful discretion that the plot exudes an aroma of almost Victorian primness rather than anything overtly aberrant."
And Michael Billington was even tougher: "The show's trick is to pander to an audience's liberalism without ever testing it...cosy, comfy, glamorous and about as daring as a Sunday school outing. It is almost invariably cast with two unequivocally straight actors who make minimal physical contact."
But if Fierstein's book was controversial, there were two aspects of the show about which most could agree. Almost everyone admired Herman's score. Barnes called La Cage Herman's "best musical yet---happier, more assertive, more buoyant than Hello, Dolly! or Mame." Rich wrote, "We expect snappy, old-style Broadway melodies---but we don't expect passion. This time we get that passion, and it is Mr. Herman's score that gives the charge to every genuine sentiment in the show."
And there were no reservations about the two stars. In the Daily News, Douglas Watt wrote, "What makes La Cage winning is the excellent playing of Hearn and Barry." According to Rich, "What Mr. Hearn does with this role is stunning-a breakthrough, at last, for a fine, hard-working actor." Of Barry, Rich noted that he "has nothing as showy to do" as Hearn's "moment of triumph," the first-act "I Am What I Am" finale, but "his contribution is invaluable."
Will La Cage's message of tolerance seem quaint to audiences used to franker depictions of gay relationships in today's media? Will the Broadway revival give us a more overtly physical Georges and Albin? Will Beach and Davis carry the show as strongly as Hearn and Barry? We'll soon find out.