Five-time Emmy Award® winner Kelsey Grammer makes his Broadway musical debut alongside Olivier winner Douglas Hodge in this funny and touching tale of one family's struggle to stay together... stay fabulous... and above all else, stay true to themselves. La Cage aux Folles, the splashy, high-kicking musical comedy, comes to Broadway this spring in a gloriously reconceived production that took London by storm. La Cage features Jerry Herman’s Tony Award-winning score, with such fabulous songs as "I Am What I Am," "The Best of Times" and "Song on the Sand," and a Tony Award-winning book by Harvey Fierstein.
Here, finally, we have a realistic and believable pair who have been devotedly living with each other for a quarter century. And that makes 'La Cage' more emotionally effective than before. The producers are fortunate to have imported Hodge, who won an Olivier for this role. He comes on looking and acting like Colleen Dewhurst playing farce, and proceeds to offer a performance at once grandly over-the-top (in the first act) and emotionally grabbing (in the second). The surprise of the evening comes from Kelsey Grammer as Georges. He plays the comedy and acts the host perfectly well, but in 'Song on the Sand' and 'Look Over There' he gets to the heart: Here is a man earnestly and enduringly in love.
I was even sorrier while sitting through the shoddy revival of La Cage aux Folles (Longacre Theatre), Jerry Herman and Harvey Fierstein's 1983 musical, in which a drag nightclub star and his club-owner hubby battle each other but unite to confront the right-wing parents of hubby's son's fiancée. The original production made the gay couple's Côte d'Azur nightclub the goofily glamorous place Herman's lyrics salute. Terry Johnson's new production, with misplaced Anglocentric cultural memory, reduces it to a tatty, skimpy pier-end revue where drag equals stereotype plus ineptitude. The familiar gestures pall almost instantly, the songs get trampled into incoherence, and Douglas Hodge's simpering, ad-libbing cliché of a drag diva shoots down any glimpse of emotional truth. Amazingly, in the midst of this rag heap, Kelsey Grammer pulls off a genuine star turn, investing the role of Hodge's spouse with easy charm and projecting his ballads with graceful feeling. He should keep classier company artistically.
1983 | Broadway |
Original Broadway Production Broadway |
1986 | West End |
London Production West End |
1987 | US Tour |
National Tour US Tour |
2004 | Broadway |
Broadway Revival Broadway |
2006 | US Tour |
National Tour US Tour |
2008 | West End |
West End Transfer West End |
2010 | Broadway |
Broadway Transfer Broadway |
2011 | US Tour |
National Tour US Tour |
2023 | West End |
West End |
Year | Ceremony | Category | Nominee |
---|---|---|---|
2010 | Drama Desk Awards | Outstanding Actor in a Musical | Douglas Hodge |
2010 | Drama Desk Awards | Outstanding Choreography | Lynne Page |
2010 | Drama Desk Awards | Outstanding Costume Design | Matthew Wright |
2010 | Drama Desk Awards | Outstanding Director of a Musical | Terry Johnson |
2010 | Drama Desk Awards | Outstanding Featured Actor in a Musical | Robin De Jesus |
2010 | Drama Desk Awards | Outstanding Revival of a Musical | La Cage Aux Folles |
2010 | Drama Desk Awards | Outstanding Sound Design in a Musical | Jonathan Deans |
2010 | Outer Critics Circle Awards | Outstanding Actor in a Musical | Douglas Hodge |
2010 | Outer Critics Circle Awards | Outstanding Costume Design | Matthew Wright |
2010 | Outer Critics Circle Awards | Outstanding Director of a Musical | Terry Johnson |
2010 | Outer Critics Circle Awards | Outstanding Revival of a Musical | 0 |
2010 | Tony Awards | Best Choreography | Lynne Page |
2010 | Tony Awards | Best Costume Design of a Musical | Matthew Wright |
2010 | Tony Awards | Best Direction of a Musical | Terry Johnson |
2010 | Tony Awards | Best Lighting Design of a Musical | Nick Richings |
2010 | Tony Awards | Best Orchestrations | Jason Carr |
2010 | Tony Awards | Best Performance by an Actor in a Featured Role in a Musical | Robin De Jesus |
2010 | Tony Awards | Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role in a Musical | Douglas Hodge |
2010 | Tony Awards | Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role in a Musical | Kelsey Grammer |
2010 | Tony Awards | Best Revival of a Musical | Barry and Fran Weissler |
2010 | Tony Awards | Best Revival of a Musical | Sonia Friedman Productions |
2010 | Tony Awards | Best Revival of a Musical | Menier Chocolate Factory |
2010 | Tony Awards | Best Revival of a Musical | Harvey Weinstein |
2010 | Tony Awards | Best Revival of a Musical | Nederlander Presentations, Inc |
2010 | Tony Awards | Best Revival of a Musical | Jerry Frankel/Bat-Barry Productions |
2010 | Tony Awards | Best Revival of a Musical | Allen Spivak |
2010 | Tony Awards | Best Revival of a Musical | Olympus Theatricals |
2010 | Tony Awards | Best Revival of a Musical | Independent Presenters Network |
2010 | Tony Awards | Best Revival of a Musical | Arlene Scanlan/John O'Boyle |
2010 | Tony Awards | Best Revival of a Musical | Raise the Roof 4 |
2010 | Tony Awards | Best Revival of a Musical | Richard Winkler/Bensinger Taylor/Laudenslager Bergère |
2010 | Tony Awards | Best Revival of a Musical | Matthew Mitchell |
2010 | Tony Awards | Best Revival of a Musical | Broadway Across America |
2010 | Tony Awards | Best Revival of a Musical | Bob Bartner/Norman Tulchin |
2010 | Tony Awards | Best Revival of a Musical | Edwin W. Schloss |
2010 | Tony Awards | Best Revival of a Musical | David Babani |
2010 | Tony Awards | Best Scenic Design of a Musical | Tim Shortall |
2010 | Tony Awards | Best Sound Design of a Musical | Jonathan Deans |
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