Originally reviewed for GaySocialites.com.

Nobody covers drag queens like I do! For well over 10 years, I’ve been to every nook and cranny of this dirty town to see all kinds of drag acts. All I needed from them was a press release that let me know that they’d done something with their act to bring it to the level of a cabaret performance or a theatrical evening, and I’d be there. And like any show queen worth their salt, I’ve also seen plenty of plain old drag shows in bars from the glitzy to the grimy. Often enough, I’d find the greatest geniuses lip-synching in the bars, and the biggest fakes charging legit prices for their wares in Midtown.

So when I heard that Brit director Terry Johnson had concocted a production of La Cage aux Folles that had more to do with grimy gay bar geniuses than Vegas glitter, I was deeply intrigued. That production, originally at London’s Menier Chocolate Factory, has made it to Broadway, and I have to say that it’s the most authentic, fun and touching version of this drag-centric story I’ve ever even heard of.

Georges (Kelsey Grammer) is the impresario of a trashy but charming drag club in St. Tropez on the French Riviera, where his husband, high-strung drag performer Albin (Douglas Hodge), is the star. They lead a happy existence, until their son announces his engagement to the daughter of a conservative right-wing politician — who’s coming to dinner.

This production announces its intentions right away, with its drag chorus, Les Cagelles. They’re not the collection of drag chorines you see in other productions of La Cage. They are six individual drag queens corralled into performing together. The casting of such distinctive performers as Terry Lavell, Nick Adams and Sean Patrick Doyle signals right away that any of the girls they play could headline. I’m not as familiar with the other Cagelles, but they make just as sharp an impression.

I also don’t think I’ve seen an Albin that’s as believably a drag diva as the one Hodge gives us. He doesn’t just add a fey layer to the songs he sings, as some Albins do. He sings this line as Piaf, this line as Dietrich, and his line readings are every bit as delicately over-the-top as, say, Charles Busch. Grammer has a surprising sweetness and warmth as Georges, and together they are a truly endearing couple.

Johnson has also taken great care to create the world of 1970s St. Tropez, the better to make sense of the place that Albin and George have in it. There are certain locals who “get” them, some others not quite so much. Johnson has brought a level of realism and detail that La Cage has never had before, making it more poignant, stirring and tender — and more entertaining — than ever before.

For tickets, click here.

Originally reviewed for GaySocialites.com.

It’s not entirely random that Twyla Tharp would follow her successful Billy Joel “dance musical” (Movin’ Out) and her unsuccessful Bob Dylan show (The Times They Are A-Changing), with another evening-length Broadway dance extravaganza to the music of Frank Sinatra. She’s been choreographing to Sinatra’s music since the late ‘70s, both short dances and evening-length works.

I’d have been happier with a collection of those pieces, with no attempt at connecting them, than sit through the ultimately pointless and boring narrative — about four couples falling in and out of love at a crowded nightclub — of Come Fly Away. I’m not a big fan of Sinatra’s work, so I’m a little surprised that music, not dance, was the most exciting part of the evening for me.

A few of the dances are done to the recorded versions of Frank’s songs that we’re familiar with. But most feature his vocals (or that of a live female singer) with new arrangements played by a crack onstage band. You could close your eyes, and experience the evening as an extraordinary musical celebration of vocal jazz and the Great American Songbook.

I’m not say the dancing isn’t great — it is in fact really, really good. Choreographically, this is as much a tribute to jazz music and jazz dancing in general as it is to Sinatra personally. Tharp quotes and gently parodies the great innovators of jazz dance like Hermes Pan, Katherine Dunham, Jack Cole and Gower Champion, throwing her own modern dance moves into to the mix to create technically dazzling dances, which are performed by an equally stunning company of dancers.

But Come Fly Away is decidedly less than the sum of its parts. By forcing these set pieces into a very loose narrative, she dissipates what power they have on their own. The story is unclear and awkward; there should either be a lot more of it, or much, much less. It’s an impressive evening, but only intermittently rewarding in any way.

For tickets, click here.