Theater Review—

Unconditional Excellence At Downtown Cabaret

By Julie Stern

BRIDGEPORT — One recent Sunday began at 4:30 in the morning when the dog got skunked, and by the time we trapped her inside the bathroom to pour buckets of “simple solution” over her unremorseful hide, the whole house smelled (to quote our son, who had been sleeping on the couch) like the Porta-John at a garlic festival.

If there was anything that could salvage the weekend, it was the chance to see Bridgeport Cabaret’s production of La Cage aux Folles. I’m happy to report we enjoyed the show so unreservedly that we came home and bowed to the inevitabilities of nature by forgiving the dog.

Local audiences are probably familiar with the story via The Birdcage – the Mike Nichols-directed film that starred Robin Williams and Nathan Lane in an American remake of the 1970s French movie, La Cage aux Folles. The French film, which quickly became a cult favorite, told the story of Georges and Albin, a gay couple in San Tropez, whose heterosexual son falls in love with the daughter of a bigoted right-wing politician. The boy, Jean-Michel, is the product of a one-night stand between his father and an English showgirl, who gave him up at birth.

In the name of making a good impression on his prospective father-in-law who has asked to meet his parents, the boy demands that Albin, his effeminate adoptive “mother,” must disappear temporarily. His plan is to get his birth mother to fill in for the duration of the visit. When she stands him up, Albin, who makes his living as a transvestite performer in a nightclub called “La Cage aux Folles,” reappears in the guise of a bourgeois French matron, with comically disastrous, but eventually happy results.

In 1983, Jerry Herman and Harvey Fierstein turned the story into a Broadway musical that garnered six Tony Awards and ran for 1,761 performances. Unlike The Birdcage, the musical is able to capture the glitter and pizzazz of the nightclub itself.

The show features a chorus of nine “cagelles” (the birds of the title). Their opening number “We are what we are” is a comic routine in which they mockingly defy the audience to guess which of them are male and which female. It also establishes a deeper theme culminating in Albin’s rendition of “I am what I am,” closing the first act with a passionate affirmation of his own sense of dignity and pride.

What makes the show so effective is that after it begins by exploiting for comic effect all the campy exaggeration of the transvestite lifestyle, it moves to deeper emotional waters as it portrays the real pain felt by Albin at being rejected by the boy he raised, and Georges, at being torn between loyalty to the man he loves, and devotion to his son. La Cage is farce, to be sure, but it is farce tempered by humanity, and that makes it doubly entertaining and moving.

The cast is, as usual at DCT, as good as it gets. Featured are James Van Treuren as Georges, David Young as Albin, Brian Kremer as Jean Michel, and a terrific turn by Tituss Burgess as Jacob, the butler who wants to be a chambermaid. Gary La Rosa handles the directing and choreography with a sure hand and Lydia Gladstone’s costumes are a real kick.

The packed house gave the show a standing ovation and they deserved it. This is definitely worth a trip down to Bridgeport and a great way to spend a weekend, even if your dog hasn’t wrecked your morning.

(Performances of La Cage Aux Folles: 20th Anniversary continue at Downtown Cabaret Theatre, 263 Golden Hill Street in Bridgeport, through February 8. Call 203-576-1636 or visit www.dtcab.com for showtimes and ticket details.)