A riotous 'La Cage aux Folles' returns to B'way
By MICHAEL KUCHWARA (AP) – 1 day ago
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5iZC8ya0gTQGbXSkOx5igcZTVy7ywD9F5OGAG0NEW YORK — 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.
Hodge is the primary reason this riotously funny and, yes, emotionally affecting revival of the Jerry Herman-Harvey Fierstein musical has returned to Broadway only five years after its last New York appearance. Yet there is more to the show than Hodge's star-making performance.
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La Cage Aux Folles comes out of '80s closet in new Broadway production
Published On Sun Apr 18 2010
By Richard Ouzounian Theatre Critic
http://www.thestar.com/entertainment/theatre/article/797224--la-cage-aux-folles-comes-out-of-80s-closet-in-new-broadway-production"The best of times is now," Douglas Hodge sings joyously in the revival of La Cage Aux Folles, which opened on Broadway on Sunday night, and one would have to agree with him.
The Jerry Herman-Harvey Fierstein musicalization of the popular French film and play about gay life on the Riviera has been through a lot of political hoops since it first opened in 1983.
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So much revelry and grief break free from 'La Cage Aux Folles'
By Elysa Gardner, USA TODAY
http://www.usatoday.com/life/theater/reviews/2010-04-19-lacage19_ST_N.htmNEW YORK — A telling moment came early at a recent preview of the new Broadway revival of La Cage Aux Folles (* * * out of four).
Wrapping the production number We Are What We Are, the delightfully witty and athletic male performers cast as Les Cagelles — the chorus "girls" at an outré nightclub on the French Riviera— tossed a few beach balls into the audience. The crowd, after having some fun, dutifully tossed them back, only to have the dancers hurl them out again. The boisterous back-and-forth escalated until one ball wound up in the mezzanine.
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Kelsey Grammer Is Big Draw, Drawback in Smart 'La Cage' Revival
Review by Jeremy Gerard
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601088&sid=a5CeCVBlZwPQApril 19 (Bloomberg) -- The chorus of six long-limbed drag queens in the latest Broadway revival of Jerry Herman's "La Cage aux Folles" is half that of two earlier outings.
The reductions in this stripped-down version, Broadway's latest import from London's Menier Chocolate Factory, seem especially stark as it follows closely a 2005 revival that matched the opulent 1985 Tony-winning original sequin for sequin.
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THEATER REVIEW | 'LA CAGE AUX FOLLES'
Squint, and the World Is Beautiful
By BEN BRANTLEY
Published: April 19, 2010
http://theater.nytimes.com/2010/04/19/theater/reviews/19cage.htmlTheir plumage is wilting, their wigs are askew, and their bustiers keep slipping south to reveal unmistakably masculine chests. Yet the ladies of the chorus from "La Cage aux Folles" have never looked more appealing than they do in the warm, winning production that opened Sunday night at the Longacre Theater.
Terry Johnson's inspired revival of Jerry Herman and Harvey Fierstein's musical, starring a happily mismatched Kelsey Grammer and Douglas Hodge (in a bravura Broadway debut), delivers the unexpected lesson that in theater, shabby can be not just chic but redemptive. This deliberately disheveled show, incubated at the tiny hit-spawning Menier Chocolate Factory in London, is a far cry from the high-gloss original production of 1983 or the glamorous, soulless revival that opened less than six years ago.
