He is What He Is

I went to see La Cage aux Folles today for the first time, again accompanied by my new comrade-in-arms, Billy Porter. Billy is at a huge transitional cross-roads in his own career. Having flared brightly in the theatre and the recording industries in the eighties and nineties, he is now pursuing a career as a maker of theatre as well as a performer. He looks at work both as someone who might eventually direct the piece, as well as someone who might play a suitable role within it, which gives our conversations a really specific focus. The role of the ageing diva Albin is of course one of the great theatrical vehicles of musical theatre, and one which Billy has developed a great desire to portray.


The critical buzz on the Menier Chocolate Factory production of La Cage aux Folles is that it is a stripped down version focused on establishing a more emotionally credible relationship between the central couple (Albin and Georges) in order to focus on the people behind the drag masks, rather than on the drag spectacle itself. The current Albin is John Barrowman, who is hugely loved in England as the star of Torchwood and is himself a queer artist who is publicly open about his sexuality, but has successfully carved a “straight” leading man image and appeal. He was sensational in the role, capturing the drag queen who revels in dramatics, the “second wife” who struggles to conquer insecurity in her role as mother, the ageing artist who fears that change means extinction and the inner strength that drives him to understand and assert that “I Am What I Am,” in the musical’s signature song.


I must admit to a skeptical attitude toward musicals. The mythical moment when a character has run out of words and simply MUST burst into song has remained just that for me – mythical. The transition between scene to song and back again remains an elusive, strange suspension of disbelief that I maintain and resent. Recently, however, in the spirit of this production of La Cage aux Folles, productions have begun to treat musicals as plays with music. Sam Mendes of course is the most easily identifiable figure in this tradition, given his dramaturgical approach to Cabaret, but the Menier Chocolate Factory seems to be hiring directors who work in the same way, such as Sam Buntrock, whose immaculate production of Sunday in the Park with George was recently seen in New York, and Trevor Nunn, whose production of A Little Night Music is currently in rehearsals (featuring Carnegie Mellon alumnus Hunter Herdlicka as Heinrich). This production's approach to La Cage aux Folles certainly allowed us to re-evaluate a text that is now seen as inherently camp and fluffy and see that without textual modification, the book contains the possibility of great depth and sincerity. The final and most stunning reveal of the musical is of course the appearance of Albin at the end of the play in plainclothes – the drag queen that we have watched throughout the play and seen try and fail to impersonate a “straight man” comes out in a plain button-down white shirt with rolled up sleeves and a pair of black slacks, walking and talking without a trace of affectation or performance.


Albin still manages to surprise, and I was rather surprised that seeing a representation of a gay man on stage who can embrace the full spectrum of who he is and can also simply be a man achieved such an emotional effect. This was of course, immediately trumped by another, even more emotional moment: Albin and Georges come toward each other and simply, sincerely, unfussily kiss one another – an expression of love so understated and so universal and yet still so foreign and shocking. I am anxious indeed to see the American reception to this production in its upcoming Broadway transfer, and anticipate with unusual eagerness directing a production of the future starring the great Billy Porter, who embraces more than anyone I know being what he is.


(posted by Ed)