They Are What They Are

“Shabby” is the watchword for the latest revival of [La Cage Aux Folles], Harvey Fierstein and Jerry Herman’s musical version of the French farce (better known from the non-musical film adaptation The Birdcage). Critics have enthused over the smaller, more intimate production, at the expense of the glitzy, sequin-blinding 2004 production. But shabby doesn’t really imply a beloved TV star or a chorus of drag queens sporting more overly toned flesh than Madonna.

Broadway’s version of shabby (or, at least, the version seen here) is still ritzy. Tim Shortall’s set designs are a far cry from low-budget drag shows, and Matthew Wright’s costumes should be the envy of every contestant on RuPaul’s Drag Race. Not to mention Richard Mawbey’s wigs. No, the shabbiness appears in the most unwelcome of places: the performances.

Kelsey Grammer gives a solid, unremarkable performance as Georges, the straighter of the gay couple whose son has come home to St. Tropez with his fiancée and his fiancée’s right-wing family in tow. He hits the notes, he lands the jokes, and he’s unmistakably the man who played Frasier for 213 years. Douglas Hodge, as the flamboyant Albin, has been, in many ways, the show’s raison d’etre for transferring from London to the Great White Way, but it’s difficult to discern what all the fuss has been about. He camps it up in high style, shamelessly (and exasperatingly) milking laughs for all they’re worth, but he seems to be under the impression that Herman’s songs are of the same ilk as Stephen Sondheim’s. Thus, we get him performing Herman’s triumphant, “Here I am world!” anthems sung in a character voice through clenched jaw.

For some reason the conservative family, led by an ambitious politician who has pledged to shut down St. Tropez’s transvestite clubs, are all played with American accents, which lends the play the air of a Henry James novel: A wealthy unmarried girl meets a dashing young man, who’s hiding a scandalous secret. The effect is distracting, to say the least, though Veanne Cox still manages to be funny as the wife and mother, without having much to do. Elena Shaddow is perfectly fine as the mostly silent fiancée, though A.J. Shively, as Georges’ son, doesn’t find anything redeeming about his priggish and selfish son. Shively plays the role as if he were Patrick in Auntie Mame, had Patrick been too headstrong to listen to Mame’s warnings about the Uptons.

The problem with the show is that there’s simply nothing there. Heavy on production numbers and light on plot in the first act, the ratio switches in the second, which speeds furiously through the show’s plot in an hour. The relationship between Albin and Georges is still a touching one, but we never believe that we’re seeing a long-term couple on stage. What we’re seeing are two straight men paying homage to the notion of a gay relationship, rather than recreating one.

[La Cage Aux Folles]

Open run, Longacre Theatre, 220 W. 48th St. (betw. Broadway & 8th Ave.), 212-239-6200; $36.50–$132.50.