The truly surprising thing about the new revival of “La Cage aux Folles” with Encores! is that it’s directed by Robert O’Hara, best known for bringing such cutting-edge works as “Slave Play,” “Bootycandy” and “Barbecue” to the stage.
Maybe O’Hara needed a vacation. His “La Cage,” which opened Wednesday at the New York City Center, is anything but cutting edge. David Merrick recast “Hello, Dolly!” with an all-Black ensemble led by Pearl Bailey and Cab Calloway way back in 1967. Nearly six decades later, there’s nothing that novel now about seeing Billy Porter and Wayne Brady in roles first performed by George Hearn and Gene Barry, and played on Broadway most recently by Douglas Hodge and Kelsey Grammer.
What makes this “Cage” worth seeing is Porter and Brady’s red-hot chemistry. I’ve seen a few productions of Harvey Fierstein and Jerry Herman’s 1983 Broadway musical about a gay middle-aged showbiz couple living in Saint-Tropez, and never have I felt that Georges and Albin were really lovers, and that includes Nathan Lane and Robin Williams in Mike Nichols’ “Birdcage” movie redo.
To their credit, Porter and Brady generate both comic and sexual heat. They play it gay with no apologies and with real gusto. Long-married couples have a tendency to finish each other’s sentences; Porter and Brady top off each other’s jokes. Brady is especially effective at emitting a sly smoke that never fails to tickle with Porter’s flaming performance.
What takes a while to catch fire is the story itself. You simply want to slap Georges’ son, Jean-Michel (Alaman Diadhiou), for not wanting to introduce Albin to his bigoted future in-laws (Peter Francis James and Sharon Washington). Speaking of introductions, Fierstein’s book leads us to believe at the top of the show that Jean-Michel is Georges’ secret trick. What was sort of ooh-la-la in the 1978 movie and the 1973 play by Jean Poiret (the source material for this musical) is kind of icky as presented here.
O’Hara’s direction has also messed a little with Les Cagelles. Rather than a uniform group of dancers à la The Rockettes, each performer appears to be channeling either Mariah Carey or Rihanna or Madonna or Grace Jones or Sylvester. It’s no wonder that Edgar Godineaux’s choreography has trouble handling that herd of impersonators.
