Mainly on Directing

by Arthur Laurents

  Very relieved, the boys beamed. Harvey had been a drag queen but had never written a musical. Jerry had written scores and contributed to books, but it was the director who usually took the material and shaped it for the show. What I had just done was what they expected me to do: take something that had been written, that anthem, and figure how to make it work. They were elated; they had their director; La Cage aux Folles was under way.

  Was it? Was I really hooked by one song?

  Perhaps because I was a playwright, one of the things that attracted me to directing musicals was the opportunity to be creative and inventive. It was constantly knocking, and I loved answering as I had just done. It was tempting to sign on (and make Fritz happy as well), but something else weighed in more heavily. That something had always been there, but I had let my distaste for drag and camp get in the way.

  Two homosexuals at the center of a musical. Two gay men. Two gay men happy at the final curtain. Of a big Broadway expense-account musical. Was that possible? Reaching higher: a Broadway musical to which the unconverted came and left glad they came? Questioning the beliefs they held before they came? Was that possible? Could that be achieved?

  Wasn't it worth a try?

  Was that a question for a director?

  If a director has political convictions, does he bring them into the theatre? Does he let them influence what play he chooses to direct and how he directs it? Rhetorical questions; of course he does. “I Am What I Am,” Torch Song Trilogy, and the authors' eagerness for me to take charge tipped the scale. I took on La Cage aux Folles because I believed that men who put lampshades on their heads and tablecloths around their waists while their giggling wives squealed “Oh, Harry!,” men who used the word “fag” casually—most straight American men, then—could nevertheless be gotten to applaud gays. They and theirs were the target audience, not the converted. If the show was any good, gays and the gay-friendly would provide audible support with laughter and applause. It was the enemy I was after. I knew I would have a good time trying to get them.

  Jerry and Harvey and I were more than merely on the same go-get-them page. The collaboration was a joy from the first day in Jerry's studio to the last preview in Boston, where the show had its tryout. Each morning after a preview, the three of us would meet for breakfast. They would give me their notes and I would give them mine. Finally, no one had any notes, but Harvey had a request. “I wish they would kiss at the end.”

  The two male leads danced off into the sunset at the end as I staged it. “Kiss where?”

  On the lips would risk losing the audience we had worked so carefully to get, and Harvey knew that. “On the cheeks,” he said.

  “French men kiss on both cheeks regularly,” I said.

  “I hate it when they just touch,” Jerry said, and we called for the check.

  • • •

  The first question when starting work on a show is: what is it about? The answer tells where to put the focus. Both play and movie focused on camp elements in the relationship between the two men. What effectively counterbalanced camp in the movie was the presence of the boy's natural mother. A very French woman, or at least what Lampshade Harry and his squealing wife would think a very French woman was: chic and sexy and a threat. A figure that could add a color to the musical, vary the tone, broaden the range, and shift the focus of the story to the boy and his mother. Except that ours couldn't. Unless we wanted to be sued, the woman couldn't appear in the musical, because she didn't appear in the play. Paradoxically, that limitation led me to what the musical could be about. The story was thin, even for a musical; moreover, it was neither inherently funny nor dramatic. What was needed was something to grab the audience and give it someone or something to root for. La Cage aux Folles the musical was going to be about a boy who comes to accept a man as his mother. There we were! The focus on family and off sex. And the story had an unexpected heart. Even a little heart would be a big help in a tale of two queens. Especially in a multimillion-dollar musical tale of two queens, one a drag queen, the other his lover.

  That mother/son approach conceivably could be tracked to material buried in both the play and the film, but a literal adaptation wasn't desirable anyway. Literal adaptations start a musical off in trouble. No form is comfortable in another form, and the addition of music brings a change that demands change in attitudes. The adapters must be clear why they're attempting this work. What's their purpose? What's their viewpoint? To achieve the purpose, material from the original will be kept or discarded or embellished, and always as seen from a special viewpoint.

  • • •

  We took what we could from the Jean Poiret play and began cobbling a show. I structured; Harvey wrote scenes in a loose-leaf notebook; Jerry wrote songs on his melodic baby grand. Work was interrupted two or three times a week to raise money via auditions held in Jerry's top-floor studio for investors perched everywhere, even on the little balcony and under the trapeze. Allan was good at rounding up money. My concentration was on testing the story as we developed it and inventing what we hadn't gotten to. There are worse ways of writing a musical, judging from the current crop. Occasionally we could see which was the way to go. The emphasis on the boy accepting a man as his mother got a tangible response: checks! A new song Jerry sold at his piano: checks! (Jerry Herman could have had a big career just singing and playing to raise money.) But the Fritz Holt—like enthusiasm we were hoping for remained elusive; the checks weren't that many or that big … until one audition day an idea popped out without warning. I had reached the section of my pitch explaining the show's chorus of drag queens (named Les Cagelles, because it sounded French) when I heard myself say:

  “Two of them are actually girls, the rest are boys. The audience will be trying to find out which is which, but they won't know until the curtain call.”

  Not a bad idea, I thought, not at all—in fact, pretty good. Very good, thought the putative investors—terrific, in fact. They applauded—big-time, as Allan put it. They ceased being putative: the big-money ball began rolling in. That I didn't have a clue how Which-Cagelle-is-what? was going to be worked out didn't matter to Allan. It had to be worked out; therefore, it would be worked out—and he was right: it would be and it was. What I didn't and couldn't foresee was that thanks to word of mouth and a good press agent, Shirley Herz, Which-is-what? would become one of the best sellers of the show. It had nothing to do with the story; it was just smoke and mirrors—the theatrical magic this musical Cage aux Folles needed.

  Smoke and mirrors have always played an important role in musicals, most obviously through the scenery: the merry-go-round in The Band Wagon, the chandelier in Phantom, the helicopter in Miss Saigon, the projections in Tommy, the hanging starlight bulbs by Kevin Adams for Spring Awakening. Sometimes the smoke makes the audience cough and the mirrors are cracked—or, worse, smoke and mirrors are all there is to the show: Miss Saigon with its helicopter and its Cadillac and its black pajamas not intended for the sleep they brought. On the other, better hand, as in various Hal Prince—directed musicals, smoke and mirrors can derive from the material and reinforce it, even extend its horizons by making it visually exciting: the elevator in Company, the lascivious all-girl band rolling on stage in Cabaret, the Boris Aronson hanamichi pouring into the auditorium for Pacific Overtures. Smoke and mirrors can conceal or decorate or enlarge, and in guises other than scenery or costumes. The staging of scenes, of numbers, of what leads up to numbers—anything on stage can be smoke and mirrors, as I found out with Cage.

  Take its opening. The vitally important first ten minutes of a musical are the first challenge for the director. The opening musical number of Cage was obvious: the Cagelles singing “We Are What We Are” in drag in the nightclub called La Cage aux Folles. But was that how the show would open—with a stageful of drag queens in full fig? Hit the audience smack in the face? Get it over with and confront the unconverted—the enemy? I didn't think so. The purpose of the first minutes of any musical is n
ot to challenge the audience but to hook it so firmly it will stay hooked for half the first act. Then you can challenge away.

  The French movie we couldn't use had a visually alluring opening: skimming over the glistening night water of the Mediterranean toward the lights of a Riviera cabaret spelling out “La Cage aux Folles.” Effective: it made you want to go inside that club. Of course, that shot couldn't be duplicated in the theatre; but paradoxically, that was a blessing. The theatre, even the most kitchen-sink theatre with real running water from a tap, is illusion; if the movie opening could be simulated in theatre terms, no one could claim copyright violation. Simulated it was, and brilliantly, thanks to David Mitchell: a technical wizard, as a few scenic designers are; an artist, as a very few are; and a painter, which almost no one is.

  As the orchestra played the overture (with Broadway-French touches like a Piaf accordion), the curtain rose on rose-hued buildings in perspective in a little plaza with the Riviera on the horizon. Lights glowed in windows as the buildings spun and parted to reveal the façade of a nightclub with “La Cage aux Folles” in lights. The buildings slid off, the club entrance rode downstage, and its doors opened to reveal gossamer white curtains. Then the icing on the magic cake of theatre: swirling white curtains billowed and spread out across the whole stage, with a LA CAGE sign glittering above it. Through the center of the parachute silk swept an elegant, tuxedoed Gene Barry, paradigm of the continental host, almost singing, “Mesdames et messieurs, welcome to La Cage aux Folles!” A punctuating chord from the orchestra and the audience went wild.

  Was the idea not to prepare the unconverted for the drag queens to come? No, there was a hint: Gene Barry's wrist. He thought he was being continental as he flipped his palm in a welcoming gesture to the audience, but they knew better— particularly the men who had come only because of their wives. They were so impressed and glamorized, however, by the smoke and mirrors leading up to that wrist, they were glad they had come.

  Gene Barry. What an unexpected journey we all take. Tom came to Boston for the last preview before we opened. It was a Friday night. He was complimentary; he appreciated all the smoke and mirrors. But fortunately for me, he wasn't fooled.

  “You've done a wonderful job,” he said. “You know I never thought much of this thing, so I'm really amazed at the level you've brought it up to. But—” I braced myself—“it's not what you want it to be, because Gene Barry isn't any good.”

  During rehearsals, everyone, myself included, had wanted to fire Gene, but we couldn't find anyone to replace him. It was extremely hard to find an American with the continental flair and the music-hall (vaudeville) style the role of Georges demanded. What made it harder was that the co-starring role of Albin (the wonderful George Hearn) was not only showier but had all the big numbers. Gene did have the vaudeville style, which is what had gotten him the part, but little else. A television series can be an unnoticed death to an actor's talents. But there had been no replacement to be found, and there still wasn't. I did what every director has to do in that fix: I worked hard and convinced myself Gene was getting better, Gene was becoming good, Gene was good. He was getting better, but he wasn't getting good.

  I went into his dressing room before the Saturday matinee. He took one look at my look.

  “No!” he said. “No! We're opening tonight!”

  “Just listen to me.”

  “No! I will not be upset!”

  “You'll be panned if you don't.” He had moved to open the dressing-room door to kick me out but stopped. Gene was not a fool; he knew he was in trouble. “I can help you,” I said.

  “You haven't done much so far,” he snapped.

  “You go up on the feed line for every one of the few jokes George has. He's Irish. Next time, he'll punch you in the nose. I know why you do it, Gene. I understand. He has all the big numbers. But do what I say and I'll get you through tonight. Then I promise you we'll turn every one of those announcements of yours into an aria that will land like a musical number.” That wasn't bullshit. I believed it, so he did. “For tonight, whenever you're on stage with George, never look anywhere except into his eyes. Only three people will know you're looking at his forehead—you, George, and me. The audience will think you're looking into his eyes, and this will become the most unusual love story in musical-theatre history.”

  He did it, and it actually worked. So did the transformation of his “Tonight, La Cage aux Folles presents the magnificent Zaza” and all its variations into emotional moments. The challenge to bring them off was one of those opportunities that attracted me to musicals. I had a really good time inventing with Gene, and the result was gratifying—not only in what it did for the show but in what it did for Gene and what it did for Gene and me. He loved being in Cage; his wife loved his being in Cage; and he loved me as a friend. He played New York for a year, then the California company for almost a year. A year or so later, he wanted to come back to the New York company. He was so happy rehearsing, so happy working with me again, so happy playing Georges again. And he was good! Unfortunately, he played only one night. He had a heart attack two hours after the performance. His life dwindled after that, but he'd had that triumphant night.

  I might have developed those announcements into arias during rehearsal; I should have, because I knew even then that Gene didn't have the big moments he wanted and the character he deserved. Rehearsals aren't used nearly as much as they should be for experimenting. Actually, I did use Cage rehearsals to test how far I could and could not go with moments like a man singing a love song to another man for the first time in a big Broadway musical.

  The day I showed the company Gene singing “Song on the Sand” to George, there were no accordion, no strings, no romantic backdrop and lighting; just a rehearsal piano and two actors sitting at a table. But the two were really into the scene—they weren't Gene and George, they were Georges and Albin. Gene might not have been very good at that stage, but he was never self-conscious about playing gay. That's rare, even today. At one point in the song, Albin reaches over for Georges's hand; then Georges puts his over Albin's. With the last note, Albin leans over and kisses Georges's hand. I looked around the rehearsal room: tears were being brushed away. Well, gypsies—what do you expect? But I watched the audiences during that song, Boston audiences: tears were being brushed away. The gypsies always know. If the love is believable to the characters, the audience might not like it or accept it, but they will believe it, no matter what the gender.

  A cautionary note about intricate moving scenery in musicals. It can work, sometimes even at first try; but sooner or later, it won't. It will break down and there will be panic. That's where relations with the crew comes in. The first Boston preview of Cage had to be cancelled because the scenic sorcery of the opening didn't work. If the nightclub doors didn't jam as they slid on stage, then they jammed as they rode downstage. They jammed both times at rehearsal the next day. How could we have a performance? How could we not? The show had almost no advance; tickets weren't selling; it would be unfair to the producers to cancel another preview. The doors to the club would have to be cut, and as the revolving buildings slid off, the white curtains would come billowing down and spread across the stage under the glittering Cage marquee. Enough sorcery for anyone.

  Not for the crew. They loved the show; they loved the cast, even though, like the Cagelles, it was mainly gay and they couldn't have been straighter. (In Australia, the Cagelles were straight, the crew was gay: that's life down under.) They loved Fritz Holt and they loved me. They begged for one more chance. They were sure they could make those sliding doors work. The cast begged for them to be given their chance; they were sure their crew could bring it off.

  When a company is permeated with that kind of love—and it is a kind of love—conflicts disappear, work is a joy, and (no surprise) the show is immeasurably better. It has to be: love's involved. So it was with every company of Cage in this country, in London, in Sydney—and it began with that first comp
any previewing in Boston. I gave the crew that one more chance. The club entrance doors slid on like butter—ecstasy!—and then jammed riding downstage. But no one panicked; the crew was prepared. They pushed the door unit downstage manually; they split the doors, they slid them off—and somehow, God knows how, without their being seen! They were determined it would work, and so it did. It was like being unable to get pregnant and then succeeding only after a baby had been adopted. The next performance, the doors worked mechanically as they were supposed to, and they continued to do so happily ever after.

  Triumph, joy, the air shimmering with success: the audience captured by the magic of theatre, aka smoke and mirrors. All the same, no matter how you sliced it and disguised it, La Cage aux Folles was still a show about drag queens who were about to make their entrance in drag singing to the audience that They Were What They Were. Furthermore, the enchantment, the magic had built up their entrance so that expectancy was higher than ever. No amount of smoke and mirrors could disguise the truth that what was coming on stage was drag. And it would have been seen as such if not for the brilliance of the greatest American costume designer of her time: Theoni V. Aldredge.

  There is truth and there is theatre truth. Waiting in the wings of the Colonial Theatre in Boston were men in women's robes: drag. That was the truth. What appeared on stage, however, because of the fantasy design of the robes, weren't men or boys or women or girls. What were they, then? Nothing identifiable. The theatre truth was that they were elegance of an ambiguous gender. One by one, to an insinuating vamp, these creatures glided on slowly, each with his/her back to the audience, turning when he/she reached his/her position to show an alluring face that had to be female even though the audience knew—from all the publicity, they had to know—it was otherwise. Maybe not, though; after all, two were known to be women. When all were in place, humor came into play and tipped the scale: “We Are What We Are” was sung in voices as close to basso as possible. The audience roared; they loved the boys—or those who were boys.