Broadway's Hits and Misses of the Spring
La Cage aux Folles
Another show I was not looking forward to, mainly because it seems only yesterday (2004, actually) that it had its last Broadway revival. But this British import, directed by Terry Johnson, gave me a new appreciation of the 1983 Harvey Fierstein–Jerry Herman musical about a middle-aged gay couple trying to pass as a typical family in front of their son's prospective in-laws. (The encounter is one climactic scene in this show; it's the whole evening in The Addams Family.) It's everything a musical should be: funny, tuneful, narratively compact, emotionally true — and with a message too. Kelsey Grammer is excellent as the more conventional half of the couple, while British Shakespearean vet Douglas Hodge, in the flamboyant role of the cross-dressing Albin, gives one of the most intense and affecting performances in a musical I've ever seen.