The Croswell Opera House continues their summer season with the heartfelt and tuneful “La Cage Aux Folles, which opened last night in Adrian, MI.
Based on the French play and film of the same name (which a few years later was also the basis for the hit film “The Birdcage”) the musical is Jerry Herman’s final original score and features a lighthearted joke-filled old-fashioned book by Harvey Fierstein. It won 6 Tony Awards in 1983 including best Musical, Score, and Book. The musical was also revived on Broadway in 2005 and 2010, both winning Best Revival of a Musical. So the show arrives with a vaunted history to the Croswell stage. (I personally appeared alongside the original Broadway cast in the Best of the Best AIDS fundraiser in NYC at the Met Opera House.)
The Croswell’s production is directed by John MacNaughton, Musical DIrection by Jonathan Sills, and Choreographed by Dean Shullick. Just like the Broadway productions, the show is at its best when it moves, sings, cracks jokes. It slows down in it’s extended dialogue scenes and clocks in at 2:50 with an intermission, which is longer than the current Les Mis. But it’s a standard book musical which sets everything up in Act I and then pounces on the main themes in Act II. The show looks great and is colorfully lit.
Eric Parker is outstanding as Georges, longtime showman and partner of the more flambouyant Albin (ZaZa in the drag counterpart) played by Johnny Reed. Their son Jean-Michael (always on point Matthew Porter) announces to dad that he’s getting married and asks him to keep Albin away from the ultra conservative family when they come to visit (delightfully nasty and funny Lane Hakel and Dawn Kingman). Therein develops the drama and once it gets going, its a doozy. What Fierstein and Herman create is a message-filled musical that doesn’t feel like it is bombarding you over the head with its themes of family, inclusion, and love. The show is accessible to all theater-goers and is part of its many years of success on Broadway.
Jerry Herman’s score is one of his finest, and while he preferred Mack & Mabel, I prefer Hello Dolly!. The songs are tuneful and lush, from “I Am What I Am,” to “The Best of Times”.
Highlights include an utterly ridiculous and hilarious “masculinity lesson”, the drag show Cagelles many numbers, and colorful costumes, wigs, and makeup…and if you don’t tear up at the end then you are an ogre, sir.
La Cage Aux Folles continues at the Croswell Opera House through June 22nd. Purchase tickets ONLY on their website or phone number and not from any third-party ticket seller. croswell.org or 517-264-7469 — photo courtesy The Croswell Opera House.
Mostly Musical Theatre 
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