Broadway Blog - LA CAGE AUX FOLLES Review Roundup

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.

Michael Kuchwara, Associated Press: "Is there a more appealing, entertaining argument for motherhood than "La Cage aux Folles"? Especially when mother is a quixotic, neurotic but undeniably goodhearted drag queen played by Douglas Hodge, who, by the way, is giving the most exuberant musical-comedy performance of the season."

Steve Suskin, Variety: "Why bring back "La Cage aux Folles" -- a major hit musical of the 1983-84 Broadway season, but certainly not a classic like "Gypsy" or "Fiddler on the Roof" -- only five years after its first Broadway revival? Especially when that 2004-05 stint proved a tired and unnecessary affair, suggesting that the original production (with its six Tony Awards) was stronger than the material. The producers of this new edition, which premiered at London's Menier Chocolate Factory in 2007, have a convincing answer: It's funny, heartwarming and terrific."

Thom Geier, Entertainment Weekly: "Hodge and Grammer provide a solid grounding for the show, but the rest of the cast offers all the flourishes you'd expect from a show rooted in drag performance. The six Cagelles are an impressively lithe and acrobatic ensemble (the choreography is by Lynne Page), and Robin de Jesus (In the Heights) is uproarious as Albin's devoted butler/maid who aspires to be Cagelle himself. By the end of this well-paced production, it's hard not to concur with the refrain of Albin's second-act number: The best of times is now. A-"

David Sheward, Backstage: "Why mount another Broadway production of "La Cage aux Folles" when we just had one in 2004? The answer is that Terry Johnson's London staging and its Olivier Award-winning star, Douglas Hodge, inject this 1983 Jerry Herman-Harvey Fierstein musical version of the 1978 French film with ingenious razzmatazz and a heartbreaking humanity that its immediate predecessor lacked."

Michael Sommers, NJ Newsroom: "Brightly performed by a nine-member musical ensemble, Jason Carr's colorful orchestrations do well by Herman's happy, heartfelt score. It's easy to fall in love with this diminutive charmer of a production."

Scott Brown, New York Magazine: " Hodge adds something new: a touch of sputtering rage that's neither heroic nor pathetic. Too agitated to hold stage center, he jerks himself around, looking for release, but finding only an audience. And for once, the performer delivering this fight-song doesn't seem to assume his listeners share his feelings or his fight. For all the spittle and vibrato on display, Hodge's number feels strangely like a private moment. This Albin is not articulating a credo. He's simply furious."

Linda Winer, Newsday: "BOTTOM LINE seedier, funnier 'Cage'"

Jeremy Gerard, Bloomberg News: "Hodge, who is built like a long-haul trucker but still looks reasonably good in a gown, makes Albin vulnerable and a little pathetic, in addition to being endearingly funny."

Elysa Gardner, USA Today: "But if Hodge has some beautifully nuanced moments, he can also milk Zaza's camp value, and that of the show, to distraction. And Kelsey Grammer's Georges can be a too-willing accomplice. Breathlessly hamming it up through some of the early scenes, Grammer almost seems to be vying to beat Zaza at her own game."

Ben Brantley, New York Times: "The rapport between him and Mr. Hodge, grounded in the peppery give and take of a vaudeville team, reminds us that there’s a necessary dash of showbiz to marriage. Like many couples, Georges and Albin have created their own private mise-en-scène and extended it to embrace a theatrical family that includes an over-the-top butler cum maid (Robin de Jesús, from “In the Heights”) and the vain restaurateur next door (Christine Andreas)."

Adam Feldman, Time Out New York: "Terry Johnson's superb revival is tighter and bolder. This La Cage aux Folles is no longer breaking ground; it's planting new crops and watching them bloom. I would never have thought that we needed another revival of this musical so soon after the last one's flames flickered out. Yet somehow this familiar show blows the roof off the Longacre Theatre, and makes a case for La Cage as a classic of American musical comedy."

Elisabeth Vincentelli, NY Post: " But since the scaled-down London import that opened last night lets us see Olivier-winning star Douglas Hodge in action, we'll take it. Kelsey Grammer may be the draw for local audiences, but the show is Hodge's alone."

Joe Dziemianowicz, NY Daily News: "Kelsey Grammer brings warmth, wit and respectable singing to fun 'La Cage aux Folles' revival"

Robert Feldberg, NorthJersey.com: "Housed in the Longacre, which has a small stage for a musical, and with eight musicians jammed into two boxes above the stage, the production suggests that, rather than being sleek and swanky, the nightclub that Georges owns and in which Albin performs is on the seedy side. Albin, meanwhile, might be a star, but he's not particularly talented - more like a second-rate music-hall performer."

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