Reviewed 4/24/04
Perhaps it's not fair to try pegging a company after only three musical offerings, but I sense a trend with Desert Stages productions: They are able to find impressive and often endearing performers for their leading roles, but they seem at a loss for adequate chorus boys and chorines. Such is the case with their latest production, Jerry Herman's buoyant plea for the understanding of all types of love, La Cage aux Folles . Gerry Cullity's Georges is a very strong and captivating creation, Garrett Van Rooy's offering as George's son Jean is full, and even Roger Prenger's presentation of George's loving wife Albin, backwards because he is supposed to be a strong singer and a weak dancer, grows on the audience through his empathy-inspiring choices, but what director KK DuBois allows when the teaming mass of mediocrity he calls an ensemble hits the stage threatens to crush any of the goodwill these three leads have injected into the evening.
Since few of them can sing in a pleasing way, the canned music that usually accompanies numbers is replaced by what I suspect is the OBCR version of the songs with the original ensemble supplementing the off key warbling of the living, breathing performers . I can't tell you how wrong I believe this is. As if this isn't enough, Laurie Cullity's basic movement seems to be beyond many in the group, and during the title number they must actually utilize the original tap dancing sounds of the OBCR to make it sound like they are doing something other than twirling and avoiding each other. A joy of productions is in the surprise of discovering who the boys are in the chorus. Here, it's much too easy to tell the "girls" from the girls, a sad situation. Their acting is uniformly unimpressive. An example is Jacob, Georges and Albin's Butler/Maid: Robbie Fields rushes through his lines as though he is reciting them rather than actually thinking them, and he bounces around the stage in a totally unfocused way. The small-but-important role of Jean's future father-in-law Dindon is tossed away by the one note offering of Alan Moerdyk , and the bumbling of the potentially funny "Cocktail Counterpoint" with its bad timing is enough to make a lover of this show cry.
This is a production of a grand musical that is ironically best when it is
concentrating on its stars alone. Cullity glows as Georges, although I'm confused
by the heavy French accent that is echoed only by sultry Beatriz Bornacini's club
owner Jacqueline and no one else. When he croons to Prenger, we see that this
is a performance that deserves more of a production around it. Prenger, a choreographer
and strong dancer, has a weak voice that goes textually against the requirements
of the character that he be velvet voiced but clumsy on his feet, but he captures
well the je ne sais quoi of the highly effeminate Albin. Rooy's Jean
Michael is a believable creation, and when he sweetly sings and dances with
the equally sweet, though not quite as strong Anny Franklin ,
the show floats.
Cullity's lighting highlights Amy Steging's simple but effective set pieces. Norma TenNapel's costumes are the strongest part of the design element, as I suspect it always should be for this production.
If you are willing to ignore the utter amateurishness of the ensemble, the stars give strong performances. Desert Stages is moving to its own freestanding performance space this summer and will be taking a big step up the theatre ladder. It's nothing less than the lead actors that they cannily cast deserve. I only hope that they'll attract a better core of chorus members to support the stars and their move.
