La Cage aux Folles

Georges runs the nightclub »La Cage aux Folles«. Its showstopping star is his spouse, the drag queen Zaza, aka Albin. One day, Jean-Michel, the son of Georges from a past relationship, shows up: he wants to marry Anne, the daughter of an ultra-conservative family, and to Albin’s enormous disappointment, he asks Georges to come alone when meeting her family. Albin is deeply hurt. But when the dinner party then takes place at Chez Jacqueline, he won’t be denied ...

Today a classic of the genre, Jerry Herman’s musical has provided us with an empowering paean to the fight for more openness and fairness, and not just for the queer scene. With Barrie Kosky’s production, the piece becomes a timeless call to arms: be true to yourself and to each other!

Jean-Michel, the couple’s son, returns from holiday and informs his father Georges that he has fallen in love with a girl called Anne and intends to marry her. Dismayed by the fact that Anne’s father, Edouard Dindon, is an ultra-reactionary politician who plans, on re-election, to sweep the Riviera clean of drag clubs, Georges is even more appalled to learn that Jean-Michel doesn’t want Albin to be there to meet Anne’s parents. Instead he wants Sybil, his biological mother, to play George’s wife for a day, even though it was Albin who brought up Jean-Michel for all of 30 years. Albin is deeply shaken that his own son has rejected him in such a way.

2. ACT

To enable Albin to attend the family meeting anyway, Georges comes up with a plan to have Albin playing the role of Uncle Albert, with studied stereotypical masculinity. But shortly before the Dindons arrive, Albin suddenly disappears – and Sybil too, as usual, fails to appear. All the greater is everyone’s surprise when Jean-Michel’s mother turns up after all. She saves the evening by arranging a table at »Chez Jacqueline«, the best venue in St. Tropez. When they get there, Jean-Michel’s mother is unexpectedly asked by Jacqueline herself to sing a song as the one and only Zaza. Eventually persuaded, Zaza even manages to get the Dindons to join in. Everything seems to have worked out until the fi nale when – old habits dying hard – Zaza whips off her wig to reveal Albin underneath.

The Dindons storm out of »Chez Jacqueline« in consternation. Jean-Michel in the meantime has realized that he made a dreadful mistake and apologizes to Albin, his mother. Although Anne stands up to her parents and insists on marrying Jean-Michel, it is Jacqueline that gets Edouard Dindon to change his mind. Aware of his political ambitions and the upcoming elections, she tips off the press to come and photograph him in the very nightclub district he plans to tear down. Dindon has no option but to consent to the marriage – and thus usher in a happy ending.