A Pirate Productions production
By Harvey Fierstein.
With music and lyrics by Jerry Herman.
Directed by Chris Wilson & Dominique Vitali.
Musical direction Philip Dutton.
Performed 25th to 18th October 2006 at the Théâtre Municipal, Esch-sur-Alzette, Luxembourg.
Help required. I have a clue as to who wrote the review below but I don’t want to falsly attribute it. And I can’t find the original (Google has let me down)! So, if you wrote this, or you know who did, please tell me so I can credit the correct person (Who did an excellent job by the way). Thanks.
An Unknown Review.
Do Pirates have any money left? Can we dream of Gypsy with Dominique to reassure us that everything is coming up roses?
“What legend told, and rumour has promised” said silver jacketed Georges, “we now bring live to our stage” and Cage aux Folles was up and running.in Esch’s Theatre Municipal, courtesy of Pirate Productions. There had been plenty of rumour and a hint of legend, and we were all agog.
And, appropriately, we duly goggled.
Immediately at the costumes – from the befeathered, besatined and bespangled chorus line (five o’clock shadow hidden with make-up) to the flamboyantly stylish dresses of the show-in-a-show’s star, Zaza. This threatens to be the swansong of Luxembourg theatre’s costumier of choice, Fay Wolstencroft; if so, she is retiring undefeated.
It’s also difficult to imagine Dominique Vitali, who played Albin, who in turn plays Zaza, ever being defeated. I’m not sure if Albin/Zaza is supposed to be the central character, but Dominique made him/her such in the belting tradition of Ethel Merman and Rosalind Russell. He was of course over the top, but this was a night for over the top. Even further over was Randolph Melton Jr, Albin’s butler turned maid, a scene stealer probably unmatched since Lassie came home.
David Mittel, Albin’s partner Georges, last played Fred in ‘A Christmas Carol’, unbelievably so, given the way here he exuded all the smooth urbanity of Gene Barry, the role’s creator, in succeeding in being more than a foil to Albin.
Everyone in the show performs. Mittel also acts, successfully projecting a bittersweet sense of genuine devotion to Albin. Plotwise, Albin is the one hard done by, asked to move out of his home so that Georges’ son Jean-Michel can pretend he has an acceptably bourgeois family. Yet here it was Georges, forced into an act he himself sees as betrayal, that one felt sorry for. Some feat.
Otherwise, the stars of the show were the chorus, five cross-dressing, seven straight. Dancers are hard to find in the amateur theatre, but these had been whipped into near-perfect shape by Alison Kingsbury (puzzlingly entitled only assistant choreographer) through routines from tap (the kind that keeps one foot on the floor at all times) to Lido-style parades via the odd snippet from Swan Lake.
Bluebells they were not. The corps of the Bolshoi they were not. But neither of those are going to turn up in a seedy nightclub on the Riviera:
This chorus might well.
The minor characters were all competently carried off: Clara Barker’s Jacqueline being particularly convincing. For Guillaume Borkhataria and Isabel Thépin as the would-be marrieds (“Our baby’s getting married…where did we go wrong?’) one can only have the same sympathy one always had for Zeppo in the early Marx Brothers films: they weren’t what people were there for.
In a final compliment of a long list, the direction – Dominique Vitali in tandem with Chris Wilson – was completely unobtrusive.
Ultimately, Cage aux Folles, despite its Broadway run and six Tony awards, fails to be a great musical because it has no great songs. Albin made the most of what there is, including I Am What I Am, but Georges (who did well with the best songs: Look Over There and Song on the Sand) suffered from mike overload when he tried for fortissimo, as did Jean-Michel. It hints at under-rehearsal with the orchestra and the electronics.
The 27-strong (really) orchestra was impeccable under Philip Dutton’s direction: for a sense of the lavishness of the show bear in mind the original show boasted only one more instrument than this.