{"id":878393,"date":"2026-06-19T14:13:18","date_gmt":"2026-06-19T14:13:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/878393\/"},"modified":"2026-06-19T14:13:18","modified_gmt":"2026-06-19T14:13:18","slug":"la-cage-aux-folles-off-broadway-review-billy-porter-and-wayne-brady-play-it-for-real","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/878393\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018La Cage aux Folles\u2019 Off Broadway Review: Billy Porter and Wayne Brady Play It for Real"},"content":{"rendered":"

The truly surprising thing about the new revival of \u201cLa Cage aux Folles\u201d with Encores! is that it\u2019s directed by Robert O\u2019Hara, best known for bringing such cutting-edge works as \u201cSlave Play,\u201d \u201cBootycandy\u201d and \u201cBarbecue\u201d to the stage.<\/p>\n

Maybe O\u2019Hara needed a vacation. His \u201cLa Cage,\u201d which opened Wednesday at the New York City Center, is anything but cutting edge. David Merrick recast \u201cHello, Dolly!\u201d with an all-Black ensemble led by Pearl Bailey and Cab Calloway way back in 1967. Nearly\u00a0six decades later, there\u2019s nothing that novel now about seeing Billy Porter and Wayne Brady in roles first performed by George Hearn and Gene Barry, and played on Broadway most recently by Douglas Hodge and Kelsey Grammer.<\/p>\n

What makes this \u201cCage\u201d worth seeing is Porter and Brady\u2019s red-hot chemistry. I\u2019ve seen a few productions of Harvey Fierstein and Jerry Herman\u2019s 1983 Broadway musical about a gay middle-aged showbiz couple living in Saint-Tropez, and never have I felt that Georges and Albin were really lovers, and that includes Nathan Lane and Robin Williams in Mike Nichols\u2019 \u201cBirdcage\u201d movie redo.<\/p>\n

\"La<\/p>\n

\u201cLa Cage aux Folles\u201d Off Broadway (Joan Marcus)<\/p>\n

To their credit, Porter and Brady generate both comic and sexual heat. They play it gay with no apologies and with real gusto. Long-married couples have a tendency to finish each other\u2019s sentences; Porter and Brady top off each other\u2019s jokes. Brady is especially effective at emitting a sly smoke that never fails to tickle with Porter\u2019s flaming performance.<\/p>\n

What takes a while to catch fire is the story itself. You simply want to slap Georges\u2019 son, Jean-Michel (Alaman Diadhiou), for not wanting to introduce Albin to his bigoted future in-laws (Peter Francis James and Sharon Washington). Speaking of introductions, Fierstein\u2019s book leads us to believe at the top of the show that Jean-Michel is Georges\u2019 secret trick. What was sort of ooh-la-la in the 1978 movie and the 1973 play by Jean Poiret (the source material for this musical) is kind of icky as presented here.<\/p>\n

O\u2019Hara\u2019s direction has also messed a little with Les Cagelles. Rather than a uniform group of dancers \u00e0 la The Rockettes, each performer appears to be channeling either Mariah Carey or Rihanna or Madonna or Grace Jones or Sylvester. It\u2019s no wonder that Edgar Godineaux\u2019s choreography has trouble handling that herd of impersonators.<\/p>\n

The post \u2018La Cage aux Folles\u2019 Off Broadway Review: Billy Porter and Wayne Brady Play It for Real<\/a> appeared first on TheWrap<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The truly surprising thing about the new revival of \u201cLa Cage aux Folles\u201d with Encores! is that it\u2019s…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":878394,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5123],"tags":[243893,1582,276,356982,356980,356984,356979,356977,2961,356978,224,5337,356983,356981,6568,291825],"class_list":["post-878393","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-los-angeles","tag-billy-porter","tag-ca","tag-california","tag-david-merrick","tag-douglas-hodge","tag-george-hearn","tag-harvey-fierstein","tag-joan-marcus","tag-la","tag-la-cage-aux-folles","tag-los-angeles","tag-losangeles","tag-new-york-city-center","tag-robert-ohara","tag-robin-williams","tag-wayne-brady"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116777189908562069","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/878393","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=878393"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/878393\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/878394"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=878393"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=878393"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=878393"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}