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REVIEW Warmhearted "La Cage" keeps it light and bright Camelot Theatre's production big on choreography and laughs Comment By Bill Varble for the Mail Tribune MailTribune.com By Bill Varble for the Mail Tribune Posted Jun. 26, 2016 at 12:01 AM By Bill Varble for the Mail Tribune Posted Jun. 26, 2016 at 12:01 AM » Social News Wow. “La Cage Aux Folles” looks and sounds like a feel-good musical should: bright, brassy, flashy, full of sound and furious color and nothing too heavy. In Camelot Theatre’s new production of Harvey Fierstein and Jerry Harmon’s 1983 musical comedy about a domestic crisis in the lives of the gay couple who run a drag revue nightclub, the odd-couple partners, Georges and Albin, are played by Alex Boyles and David King-Gabriel, whose chemistry gels nicely in the show’s warmhearted world. Directed with elan by Rebecca K. Campbell, the show has a split personality, switching back and forth between the The Riviera, the drag show club, with its Cagelles and their lively dance routines, and the adjacent apartment where the family drama plays out. Twenty-four years ago, just before Georges and Albin partnered up, Georges became the father of a baby boy through a one-time dalliance with a chorus girl. Georges and Albin raised the boy, Jean-Michel (Zaq Wentworth), and Albin has loved him like a mother. The plot’s inciting incident is the impending visit of M. Dindon (Jack Seybold), a rich, right-wing, family-values politician and his wife, Marie (Kathleen King). The couple’s daughter, Anne (Grace Peets), has agreed to marry Jean-Michel. The catch is that in order to get her parents’ consent to the match — and Marie’s sizable dowry — the Dindons must approve of Jean-Michel’s family in the visit to their home. That would be the maroon marble flat linked to the drag show club, where the walls are covered with homoerotic (but not pornographic) art, and where Albin flounces around in high heels and a turban, his face a mask of rouge and mascara. The dual structure lets us move back and forth between spectacle and narrative, and there’s just enough of the latter to give plenty of stage time to the former. That’s where we open, with Georges as the club’s master of ceremonies and the Cagelles, the clubs resident dance troupe, proclaiming “We Are What We Are.” The choreography, also by Campbell, is effective and occasionally stunning, as when Albin and the Cagelles perform the dance number “La Cage aux Folles.” The show’s signature tune, the affirming “I Am What I Am,” sung by Albin, shows up just before the intermission. Meanwhile, back at the apartment, there are complications. Georges tries to teach the flamboyant Albin how to act “masculine.” Albin camping it up in a John Wayne imitation is one of the play’s funniest moments. But as the family straightens up its act, the insecure Jean-Michel wants Albin out of the place for the Dindons’ visit (hurt feelings alert). A lot has changed since “La Cage” wowed Broadway in 1983 (not to mention since Jean Poiret’s play, on which the musical is based, debuted in 1973). This is an LGBTQ world that’s comfortable for audiences to enter. It was written that way 30-something years ago, when it was Broadway’s first musical with out gay characters as the leads. You’ll probably remember boas-and-sequins flash factor — the drag queens, the dancing, Brian O’Connor’s projections, the music performed by a live, five-piece band — after the minimal story begins to fade. What do Georges and Albin have at stake in the big crisis? The loss of Marie’s dowry is not the stuff of tragedy. The characters are thinly drawn, and most of the humor is situational. Boyles is a strong Georges, and King-Gabriel, who can apparently do anything onstage, endows Albin with humor and pathos. Rico Jimenez is a hoot as Jacob, the butler who insists on being a maid, and Kendra Taylor shines as high-spirited restauranteur Jackqueline. Wentworth’s Jean-Michel is a wimp who gets some spine when he finally gets the play’s theme: that we all are who we are, and life is about being true to oneself. Reach freelance writer Bill Varble at varble.bill @gmail.com. By Bill Varble for the Mail Tribune MailTribune.com By Bill Varble for the Mail Tribune Posted Jun. 26, 2016 at 12:01 AM » Comment or view comments Reader Reaction » STAY INFORMED Email NewsLetter Sign Up Today Sign up for our newsletter and have the top headlines from your community delivered right to your inbox. Southern Oregon Directory Featured Businesses Loading... 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