Prince Charming George Hamilton and Callipygian Christopher Sieber Dazzle Detroit in LA CAGE

My husband and I have a house on the Riviera, and we live there seasonally.  I've never seen anything along the promenades that even remotely appeared like the characters in La Cage.  If anything, Liguriennes wear all black, fiddle with their strands of pearls, drive Ferraris, and look more like The Romney constituency.  The beaches are where you moor your yachts, not where you party.  In the Broadway farce, the stage manager has a relationship with a dominatrix who continues to beat the living daylights out of him; in real life, Dale Hensley is just as funny and outrageous: he has a shrine to Katy Perry, which features religious candles with her face on it.  Now, Harvey Fierstein is a genius, and we don't expect anything ordinary brewing in his creative mind, so when he wrote La Cage aux Folles I'm sure it reflected his reality more than experiences of an ordinary couple of gays living on the Riviera like we.  While La Cage is a funny show about a certain gay couple, it's not representative of all gay couples.  

La Cage makes a beautiful statement for same-sex relationships, and as a cultural anthropologist, I applaud this paradigm shift in American perspectives. The American Anthropological Association's statement agrees, "anthropological research supports the conclusion that a vast array of family types, including families built upon same-sex partnerships, can contribute to stable and humane societies."  No one really knows why there are gay people – according to a strictly genomic theory, it should have disappeared because gay people do not tend to reproduce.  On a more evolutionary theory, it must be advantageous for humans on the whole to have people around who are the antitheses to the Octomom.  If you have to change diapers for 20 years, it's hard to find time to devote your passions to other endeavors, as Alexander the Great, Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo and Marcel Proust did.

La Cage recently made Tony Awards history as the first show to ever win the Tony Award three times for best production.  The classic musical comedy by Jerry Herman and Harvey Fierstein originally won six Tony Awards in 1984, including Best Musical.  A Broadway revival won two 2005 Tony Awards including the Best Revival of a Musical prize.  The new, freshly reconceived La Cage won three 2010 Tony Awards including Best Revival of a Musical and Best Director of a Musical (Terry Johnson).

"La Cage aux Folles" continues at the Fisher Theatre, 3011 W. Grand Blvd., Detroit, through Oct. 7.  Tickets: $40-80. For information call 313-872-1000 or kindly visit www.BroadwayinDetroit.com.

Photos courtesy Broadway In Detroit

George Hamilton and Christopher Sieber " src="https://sphotos-a.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-prn1/69187_10151269381790739_328670290_n.jpg" alt="George Hamilton and Christopher Sieber " width="500" height="391" />

Paul Kolnik" src="http://www.broadwayindetroitpr.com/download_temp/kN3ZnXwxhaZgTcBrawMu/George%20Hamilton%20as%20Georges%20and%20Christopher%20Sieber%20as%20Zaza%20in%20La%20Cage%20aux%20Folles%20Photo%20Credit%20Paul%20Kolnik.jpg" alt=" G. Hamilton as Georges and C. Sieber as Zaza in La Cage aux Folles Photo: Paul Kolnik" width="501" height="412" />

Dr. Anton Anderssen is a cultural anthropologist, specializing in "high culture." Visit his web page at Hartforth.com. Anton is a member of several high IQ societies, including Mensa, Triple 9, ISPE and Prometheus. He lives on the Italian Riviera, Milan, The Italian Alps, and elsewhere world-wide covering cultural events. Dr. Anderssen's articles are included in the United States Library of Congress as part of their Official Performing Arts Historical Web Archives.

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