la cage- what went wrong?

Jerry Zaks.

Lots of things:

Jerry Zaks directed it like it was one of his episodes of Everybody Loves Raymond.

Daniel Davis was too stiff.

Robert Goulet was too old.

Gary Beach played the role as a screaming queen, with very little depth. Still, he was good.

It was just one of those productions that went wrong right from the beginning. Although it all looked good on paper, every decision that was made was the wrong one, from the choice of creative team to the casting and beyond. Each bad decision compounded on the other and it all just imploded from a pile up of misguided good intentions.

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1) Jerry Zaks
2) The decision to not allow book revisions
3) Daniel Davis/Robert Goulet (I'd have rather seen William Daniels)
4) Gary Beach (Bryan Batt actually gave it a new twist, Beach was just playing Roger deBris)
5) William Ivey Long's "Hairspray" reject costumes
6) The lack of female chorus members
7) The male ensemble always looked like they were in drag
Gavin Creel and his lack of dancing

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Husk_charmer: The male ensemble are men in drag....That is the point.

Actually, in the original 1983 production much was made over the fact that it was difficult to tell which performers were male and which were female - a conceit that actually worked in that production.

And I know that I am in the minority here, but I wasn't all that impressed with Mitchell's work for the revival. He did win the Tony for it and the choreography was generally regarded as the production's one saving grace, but I thought it was little more than costumed aerobics. It had nothing on Scott Salmon's breathtaking, razzle dazzle choreography for the original.

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How did it win BEST REVIVAL?

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The original Broadway musical came out during the lifetime of the original movie. By that I mean the public still remembered fondly the French movie, which had played in some cities for, literally FIVE YEARS in the same cinemas. People had copies of the VHS tape and so the musical seemed like a new, fresh idea. After all that has happened in the intervening 24 years, it's just dated. And let's face it, for the general public in 1983, when AIDS was just beginning to gain public notice, to go see a show about ho-mo-sexuals was risque, dare I say, oh, you get the point.....

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I found the revival rather bland, except for the choreography. There defenitely need to be book revisions.
I thought in the original, the makeup gave it away almost immediately who were the two girls. They wore women's makeup, while the guys overdid the drag makeup.

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Hey, don't be knocking Daniel Davis - he was superb. The show died when he was replaced - for reasons that remain murky.

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I didn't really care for this production overall, and I didn't see the original.

But I don't understand how anyone can insult William Ivey Long's costumes. I thought they were some of his best and more deserving of the Tony than "Light in the Piazza" or whatever. Did "Piazza" win? I kind of thought so, but I can't remember... Anyway, the "La Cage" costumes were so big, bright, lavish, glamorous, fabulous, tacky, wonderful, etc. In my mind, perfect for this show.

And I remember the sets were panned by critics initially, but I thought that, like the costumes, they were the same mix of glamorous and tacky that you'd expect from a lavish drag show on the French Riviera. The point is I loved most of the design. It might not have been pretty, but it was just too fabulously gaudy for me to resist.

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Gavin Creel's ponytail. Ugh.