LA CAGE AUX FOLLES
LA CAGE AUX FOLLES, Playhouse Theatre, Victorian Arts Centre, MELBOURNE, 21 November-7 December 2014. Photo: Todd McKenney and Simon Burke.
For a visitor from Sydney there is more to this joyous production than the show itself because it’s a creation of that unique Melbourne institution, The Production Company (TPC). This is enough to make the deprived weep: that Emerald City cannot support such an outfit (and doesn’t have the phenomenon known as Jeanne Pratt AC to dream it up, support it and then stay the course with it) and apparently can’t even sustain occasional visits from the company after the failed 2002 experiment with Hair!
It has meant missing out on the company’s three – occasionally four – shows a year including the multi-award winning Chess, Sugar and (biggest miss of all) Grey Gardens and a Dirty Rotten Scoundrels that, because of the now well-proven TPC business model, didn’t send its backers stone motherless broke…
No alternative then, when Todd McKenney and Simon Burke were announced as the stars of a TPC La Cage aux Folles than to get on a plane and head south. And what a sensible decision that was.
The trimmed back, thrifty TPC house style actually suits La Cage aux Folles – a show that’s supposed to be set in a seedy basement drag nitery on the French Riviera (and not in the rather more glitzy-glam South Miami of the movie). So the simple, colourful set (Dale Ferguson) with a central banquette, upper level, twin staircases and two ostrich-fronded palm trees needs only the wheel-on, wheel-off wardrobe racks hung about with dozens of multi-coloured costumes to change the atmosphere and location – from the club, to the upstairs residence and down to the dressing room and back again.
The dressing room is where the show opens – with the Cagelles and their harried stage manager, a gum-chewing dresser and laidback wig-wrangler all preparing for the night’s work. (Spencer Bignell, Evan Lever, Rubin Matters, Lauren McKenna, Adam Noviello, Taylor Scanlan, Greta Sherriff, Anthony Sheppard, Kyle Stevens, Troy Sussman and Josh Gates.)
The club is the life’s work and successful business of Georges (Simon Burke) and Albin (Todd McKenney). Albin is also Zaza, the star of the show and the club’s raison d’etre. Between them they have also raised Georges’ son Jean-Michel (Robert Tripolino), the result of a long ago, one-night drunken experiment. Despite Zaza’s penchant for drama and jealous hissy fits, everything is bon until young Jean-Michel comes home and announces he’s getting married. What’s more, his fiancee Anne (Emily Milledge) is the only daughter of ultra-right politician Edouard (Gary Sweet) whose own life’s work is all about getting rid of poofs and queers and dens of iniquity such as La Cage aux Folles.
Understandably Georges’ distress focuses on Jean-Michel wanting to do the deed at age 20, rather than the prospective in-laws, but Jean-Michel prevails because quite frankly he is an over-privileged, spoilt brat. Further evidence of this is his next demand: that Albin not attend the dinner he wants Georges to host for Edouard, downtrodden wife Marie (Marg Downey) and their daughter.
It’s possible that in 1973, when the French play on which the musical is based was first staged, this might not have seemed as breathakingly cruel and selfish as it does these days, but surely not? Add to that Georges’ tame capitulation, so when he breaks the news to Albin that he’s not wanted, it makes for an uncommonly painful moment in the annals of the modern musical.
On the other hand it does give Todd McKenney the opportunity to deliver a beautifully nuanced and sensitive portrayal as the dizzy queen and loving mother whose beloved son inflicts egregious wounds; and whose partner proves to be as emotionally klutzy and unkind as your average boofy bloke as he stands helplessly by. (Equally sensitive and intelligent playing by Simon Burke.) And of course, if horrid Jean-Michel isn’t mean to Albin there is actually no plot, but still it’s palpably painful; and made even more poignant in 2014 by the march of marriage equality on the one hand and the re-emergence of religious bigotry and hate on the other.
It also provides the cue for the greatest ever anthem for gays and the out-of-the-ordinary – I Am What I Am – and McKenney imbues it with such soul and meaning that many in the opening night audience were snuffling into their hankies as they trooped out of the auditorium for Mama Jeanne’s free interval champagne and Magnums.
One aspect of the TPC model that appears lavish is in the treatment of the music: with the fabled book by Harvey Fierstein and music and lyrics by Jerry Herman, the local input from musical director Mathew Frank, and members of Orchestra Victoria (mostly out of sight behind the set), sound design by System Sound and associates David Greasley, John Scandrett and Mark Benson seamlessly melds the company and musicians no matter who is where or doing what.
And what they end up doing, you will no doubt recall, is de-poofing the apartment and entertaining Edouard and Marie to a disastrously hilarious evening – thanks to Albin’s maid/butler Jacob. (Aljin Abella who needs to slow down and not throw away his best lines in quite such a cavalier fashion.) And then there is fresh disaster thanks to Albin’s decision to masquerade as Jean-Michel’s fecklessly missing birth mother, followed by the further intervention of George and Albin’s best friend and top restaurateur Jacqueline (Rhonda Burchmore in fine form).
Along the way there are also many luscious wigs (Benjamin Moir) and extravagant gowns (Owen Phillips), much well-schooled dancing (Andrew Hallsworth) and typically astute direction (Dean Bryant). They all work to keep the show moving briskly towards an ending which is happy, of course, with epiphanies, forgiveness and love all around. But as already mentioned, there is an unexpectedly affecting emotional undercurrent, thanks to McKenney’s Albin, and it’s possibly what generated apparently the first-ever opening night standing ovation in TPC history – and hugely deserved!
