Back in 1986 when I was a student, I paid full whack to go and see a new West End musical that had just opened in the London Palladium. Now back then paying the full ticket price and not waiting for student standbys was symbolic of a show that you had to catch regardless of price and sacrifice. The friend that recommended this must see show also happened to be the first gay person that I had properly met, so knew in an awfully stereotypical way that if he said I needed to go and see this musical it just had to be something special.
The show was La Cage Aux Folles, and it starred George Hearn as Albin and Denis Quilley as Georges – the partners who had been together for over 20 years and raised a son together. Whilst expecting to see some high camp, Broadway cheese-fest I was amazed at a show that delivered on everything I thought a Broadway show should be, could also move me to tears as George Hearn gave the most breathtaking version of ‘I Am What I Am’ that I have heard to this day. Up until that point I didn’t even realise what the song was about, despite attempting to dance at the Gloria Gaynor version for years previously at various family discos – oh the irony (a little similar I always feel when Male Voice Choirs sing Cy Coleman’s Rhythm of Life from Sweet Charity, changing a few words surely doesn’t change the sentiment of this homage to marijuana?).
What amazed me even back then, were the amount of people that stormed out of the theatre in disgust when they realised what the show was about. I’ve never been politically driven but I was amazed how many people were offended enough to leave the auditorium (invariably tutting loudly on the way) at the thought of a same-sex couple being portrayed on stage (albeit by two heterosexual men at that). There was nothing overtly sexual in the production, just a beautiful if difficult love story being told through camp music. I couldn’t understand why the audience were so unfeeling towards the man who had brought up a young boy as his own and was then being rejected for being ‘different’. There was most definitely a feeling that the son was right to be embarrassed (by those that dared to stay that was).
La Cage entered the world when the UK and the US were gripped in the fear of AIDS – the gay plague that could kill you by being in the same room as a gay person. Musical theatre lost so many young, talented people to this ‘plague’. To this day there is a gaping hole where a whole generation of performers were taken from the stage before the last act had even started. How many of the original A Chorus Line men are still with us, or the original Cagelles from the Broadway production? Yet this art form, which suffered the most from the epidemic, also suffered the homophobic backlash that went with it. La Cage in London closed much too early, with many experts naming the AIDS virus and all the homophobia that went with it as a major reason for a brilliantly executed show coming down early.
Jump forward to 2000 and I was fortunate to MD Jonathan Larson’s epitaph Rent at the Olympic Theatre in Dublin, and I was horrified to note that people were still walking out of the theatre because of gay relationships being played out on stage. One of the main love stories in Rent is that between Angel and Collins, a beautiful relationship cut short by the recurring spectre of AIDS. Unlike the original La Cage, my director dared to put in a same-sex kiss – once again seats were tipped and audience members protested by walking out.
How lovely then that I went this month to watch the revival production of La Cage Aux Folles, currently playing at the Playhouse in the West End. No longer Broadway glamour personified, and looking much more Broadmoor than Broadway, this revival certainly beats its own drum. However the main love story comes through stronger than ever. Unlike the original, at the end the protagonists kiss – but also unlike the original, this time the audience cheered. Throughout the show you could sense that the majority of the audience were willing the couple to sort things out” the disappointment when the son rejects his mother figure was tangible. We could all laugh with the drag act that was the Cagelles as opposed to be horrified when some were revealed to be men in the original production.
It was a timely reminder to note how much more tolerant we had become as a society, but also to note that even the cheesiest Broadway musical has much to teach us.
