Reviews 2012
Reviews 2012
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music and lyrics by Jerry Herman, book by Harvey Fierstein, directed by Terry Johnson
Mirvish Productions, Royal Alexandra Theatre, Toronto
October 12-November 18, 2012
“One Wooden Performance, One Wondrous”
For a perfect example of the folly of stunt casting, one need look no further than the current production of La Cage aux Folles playing at the Royal Alexandra Theatre. The production directed by Terry Johnson that originated at the Menier Chocolate Factory in London took a fresh look in 2008 at Jerry Herman’s 1983 musical which had won the Tony Award for Best Musical. The new production won the Olivier Award for Best Musical Revival. This led the show to Broadway where it won the Tony Award for Best Revival of a Musical in 2010. Playing now in Toronto is the North American tour based on this 2010 revival. With such strong material what could go wrong? To put it in two words – George Hamilton.
George Hamilton is cast as Georges the “husband” of drag queen Albin, who is the star of the drag show that plays in Georges’s nightclub La Cage aux Folles in St. Tropez. Hamilton is a triple threat in this production if threat is taken to mean “hazard”. He cannot act, sing or dance. In the 1960s he had shown promise as a film actor, but he soon failed to fulfill that promise when he chose to become a celebrity and TV personality instead. The main thing he is known for today is his unvaryingly deep tan. This is appropriate for someone whose talents are entirely superficial. He has had so much plastic surgery done to remove wrinkles and maintain his original jawline, sans jowls or wattle, that his face is completely tight. Too much Botox has left his face with only two expressions – big grin or no grin. Sadly, the grin looks bizarre because it resembles the involuntary risus sardonicus induced by tetanus and makes him appear like a marionette. This, plus a persistent shortness of breath, means he can barely speak his lines much less give them any kind of interpretation.
He does not sing but rather tries speaking in tones, like Rex Harrison in My Fair Lady, though with less success. His lack of lung-power means that in some songs he actually takes a breath between every word. His attempts to reach the few high notes Herman has given him are so painful that if you heard your dog yowling like that you’d put it out of its misery. It is a huge deficit in the show when a key lead can’t sing “Song on the Sand” or “Look Over There” that are central to creating an emotional link to the characters. Given that Hamilton’s movements are completely stiff – more what one might expect from someone 93 rather than only 73 – it’s not surprising that he can’t keep up with the dancing. If the dance line he’s in turns on the spot, he’s always the last one to finish.
With one of the two leads a cipher, it is up to Christopher Sieber as Albin to do the acting for both of them. Luckily, he can. Sieber, who previously played Georges on Broadway, is a wonderful Albin. Rather than the simpering, tantrum-prone Michel Serreault of the 1978 film of La Cage aux Folles, Siebert’s Albin is rather more boyish than effeminate. If he wants to emphasize a point, he has a habit of lowering his voice an octave as if to suggest, “I may do drag but I’m no pushover.” We get the sense from Sieber that his drag really is a performance, not his essence. The signature song “I Am What I Am” becomes a defence of the complexity of his nature not of himself as an effeminate male that it seemed in the original production. Sieber’s acting, singing and dancing are great and you can’t help but think they would be even better if he had a less wooden Georges to play against. A further problem is that this Georges at 73 is old enough to be the father of this Albin at 43, which lends their relationship more of a father-son quality than the one between Georges and his son Jean-Michel.
Hamilton is not the only problem in the cast. Jeigh Madjus, who plays Georges and Albin’s maid Jacob – Filipino here instead of black in the play or film – is so over-the-top he seems more like a hyperactive cartoon character. He is so persistently in-your-face that you wonder why Jean-Michel should worry so much about the relatively self-controlled Albin and not about the clearly out-of-control Jacob.
Bernard Burak Sheredy does not convey enough menace as the ultraconservative political candidate Monsieur Dindon, Jean-Michel’s prospective father-in-law. Sheredy also cannot sing which, which along with Hamilton, helps to ruin the most clever musical number in the show – the sextet “Cocktail Counterpoint”, where the conservative guests and their liberal hosts each sing about the failings of the other in a round.
Fortunately, Sieber is not alone as a fine performer since, with the noted exceptions, the entire cast is excellent. Michael Lowney has a lovely, full voice as Jean-Michel as does Lauren Sprague who played his fiancée Anne on opening night. Seeing them made me wish again that Herman and book-author Harvey Fierstein had given these characters more to do. Gay Marshall is suitably vivacious as Jacqueline, the owner of the chic restaurant where Anne and her parents dine with Jean-Michel and his “parents”. It’s completely believable that, diminutive as she is, she could persuade the unwilling Albin to sing for her guests. The resulting anthem “The Best of Times” is beautifully managed as it gradually builds from Albins’s quiet intro to involve the entire clientele in celebration.
Director Terry Johnson’s concept is the exact opposite of that of the original production. In 1983 the creative team felt that the nightclub and its performers had to be as gorgeous as possible to be attractive to a primarily straight audience. Luckily, times have changed, and Johnson along with set designer Tim Shortall and costume designer Matthew Wright, has paid attention to the original 1973 play by Jean Poiret and realized that it is highly unlikely a drag club in 1970s St. Tropez would boast luxurious productions values. In fact, it is only a step or two upwards, if that, from the 1930s Berlin cabaret in Kander and Ebb’s 1966 musical. Johnson has also wisely set the piece in its period, otherwise it’s hard to see why Albin would object to Georges showing him affection in public in a café where they both are well known.
In Johnson’s new version the six Cagelles are not drag equivalents of the Rockettes as in the original production, but a ragtag collection – three tall, three short – definitely lacking in beauty but abounding in talent. The atmospheric stage upon the stage heeds the description of it as semi-tatty in the title song. Lynne Page’s choreography is consistently inventive and the notion of reducing the size of the orchestra to a seven-member nightclub band placed on stage in two balconies makes the setting much more realistic.
This more sensible look at the show with Sieber as such an empathetic and very funny Albin could easily have made this version of the musical the one you must see. If you are able to block out Hamilton and mentally tone down Madjus, you may still enjoy the show, but it’s a great pity that this should even be necessary. If you see that Sieber is on and one of Hamilton’s understudies, Dale Hensley or Todd Thurston is Georges, that’s the performance to go for.
©Christopher Hoile
Note: This review is a Stage Door exclusive.
Photo: Christopher Sieber and George Hamilton. ©2011 Paul Kolnik.
For tickets, visit www.mirvish.com/shows/lacageauxfolles.
2012-10-14
La Cage aux Folles