A Night of Exuberance (Pardon my lateness, the wifi where I was last night wasn't working, BUT I PROMISE I WROTE IT ON TIME).

“Has everyone gotten some drinks? Some alcohol? Good. Because the show sucks unless you’re tanked,” says Lily White, the warm-up drag queen for La Cage Aux Folles. She couldn’t be more wrong. The show was great. Flamboyant, fabulous, loud, exuberant, and most of all: gay. Being a fan of all things theatrical and loud, I was immediately drawn to the bright pink curtains that backed the stage, the boas, and dresses that the drag queens sported. La Cage was a lovely show about an unconventional family who managed to stay strong in tricky times. The show centers on the love of Georges and Albin. Georges: the more masculine of the couple, and Albin the more, shall we say, feminine of the two. Georges has a son, Jean-Michel who is soon to be married to the lovely Anne who’s father is most definitely not open to same-sex marriage. In fact, he would like to shut down all of the homosexual establishments in St. Tropez, France. We follow the two couples through high and low times, and eventually beating the odds. The show was a good balance of dance, song, and plot. Though I have to say, I was a tad underwhelmed with the amount of character development. A show like La Cage needs to be fast-paced; rowdy, and loud. But the first act dragged on for an extensive amount of time, and subtracting the musical numbers would leave us with about a good ten minutes of story. The show was filled with laughs in my opinion, but the actors had to do a lot of work to get it. The audience on opening night is always less interesting than the other nights, but on this night they were particularly dull. The crowd seemed filled with senior citizens all wearing grey ensembles. No disrespect or anything, but they seemed to fit a more conservative mold, and La Cage Aux Folles is certainly not a conservative show. I hate to admit it, but the people seeing the show really affected my experience. All complaints aside: overall, I liked it. It was a good break from hectic schoolwork to relax and see a fun-loving musical. La Cage Aux Folles had me singing “We Are Who We Are” all the way out of the theatre.