La Cage aux Folles`: A single Sterling Performance Can’t Rescue Suzart’s Show

La Cage aux Folles`: A single Sterling Performance Can’t Rescue Suzart’s Show

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Photo: Patricia Curtis.   Kraig Paul Proulx on the piano.

The trouble with Suzart’s new production of La Cage Aux Folles is that it contains only one performance of genuine dimension, commitment and conviction.

It comes from Kraig Paul Proulx, excellent in the role of Albin, the aging St. Tropez drag queen whose long-term relationship with Georges, long-time manager of the venerable La Cage nightclub, is thrown into crisis when the son they have raised together falls in love with the daughter of an ultra-conservative household.

There are moments when Proulx can be extremely funny, as he stomps about the stage, flamboyantly milking the image of the prototype stage diva for all its worth. And when he descends the club stairs, displaying extravagant costume after extravagant costume, as well as a progression of sumptuous wigs, he is a stunningly assured inhabitant of his world. We believe in him — as we also believe in the hurt he feels when his partner and the young man he considers to be his son conspire to hide him away from the future in-laws. So there’s also pride and poignancy in Proulx’s performance, especially at the close of Act One when he sings I Am What I Am, songwriter Jerry Herman’s hymn to a gay person’s right to be gay.

However, it’s this fine actor’s misfortune to be trapped in a generally flaccid treatment of the 1983 Broadway musical. The original Jean Poiret play had earlier led to a marvellous 1978 movie that in turn spawned a spirited musical version with book by Harvey Fierstein and music and lyrics by Herman. Yes, it contained a gay-themed message but it would be delivered — to quote the composer — “in a sweetly entertaining manner.” Moreover, the overriding aim was to create “a charming, colorful, great-looking musical comedy . . . an old-fashioned piece of entertainment.”

Sadly, with the exception of that one sterling performance from Proulx, Suzart has failed to serve the purpose of the show’s creators. There are a couple of portrayals which do manage to work somewhat: Mackenzie Breeze Bone exercises a buoyant charm as the fiancee, and Chad Wolfe’s uppity maid gives new meaning to the word “flounce.” And as Georges, Jim Baldwin demonstrates his soaring vocal powers when he and Proulx’s vulnerable Albin revisit the past in the affecting memory piece, Song In The Sand. But these are the only moments when there’s some semblance of much-needed chemistry between these two characters. Indeed, whenever he’s denied the chance to sing, Baldwin’s performance becomes tentative and incomplete which just about describes everybody else in the show, as well as the tone of the production itself. This musical calls out for snap, crackle and pop, but it gets a depressingly soggy treatment here under the direction of Susan Fowler Dacey.

It’s not surprising, therefore, that the evening keeps striking false notes. Too many performances don’t offer real characterizations; they give us pallid deliveries of the lines. The chorus girls are so ill-defined as to be interchangeable when they’re not before the footlights, and when they’re summoned to do a musical number, it can scarcely be said that they respond with spirit and — more importantly — attentiveness to the demands of Dani-Bone Corbishley’s promising choreography.

The original material for this show goes back four decades. Given what’s happened in more recent years, it should be treated as a period piece. But when it conveys no real sense of time or place, which is a further problem with this production, it seems more of a musty anachronism. Suzart can do better than this.

Director: Susan Fowler-Dacey

Musical director: Gabriel Leury

Set designer/technical director: Elaine McCausland

Choreographer: Dani Bone-Corbishley

Lighting: Alan Viau

Sound: Shauna-Lee Thompson

Costumes: Maureen Russell

Cast:

Albin.Zaza……………………………………………..Kraig-Paul Proulx

Georges………………………………………………..Jim Baldwin

Jean-Michel……………………………………………Jay Landreville

Jacob…………………………………………………..Chad Wolfe

Anne Dindon…………………………………………..Mackenzie Breeze Bone

Edouard Dindon……………………………………….Dave Corbishley

Marie Dindon………………………………………….Mary Lou Hulan

Jacqueline………………………………………………Jacqueline Roy

M. Renaud……………………………………………..Liam Gosson

Mme. Renaud………………………………………….Lynn Harper-Ciaronni

Francis………………………………………………….Les Hope

Hanna…………………………………………………..Kevin Fowler Dacey

Bitelle…………………………………………………..Caitlin Mears

Chantal…………………………………………………Gwyneth Whalen-Hughes

Phaedra…………………………………………………Mahtab Sabet

Dermah…………………………………………………Val Ladouceur

Clo-Clo…………………………………………………T.J. Wong

Mercedes………………………………………………..Megan Hulan

Angelique……………………………………………….Jamie Rice

Odette…………………………………………………..Stef Fairbairn

Hercule et al……………………………………………Ross Couchman

Tabarro et al……………………………………………Adam Goldberg

Etienne et al………………………………………….Emi Lanthier

Fisherman et al……………………………………….Alex Shephard

Babette et al………………………………………….Rita Thompson

Musicians

Mark Allen, Pierre Desjardins, Lisa Concessi Maclean, Chris MacArthur, Shawn MacArthur, Jason Sinkus, Allan Snider, Chris Thiessen, Joanne Thiessen

A Suzart production, continuing to Dec/ 7 at Centrepoint Studio

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