What does it mean to hand over La Cage aux Folles showing today? This is the question we can ask ourselves following the announcement of the programming, for December 2025, on the stage of the Théâtre du Châtelet, of the adaptation of the Broadway musical, itself inspired by the play by Jean Poiret.
The answer has as many faces, all as legitimate, as a disco disco ball. Since its creation in 1973 at the Théâtre du Palais Royal in Paris, and with its adaptation to the cinema, directed by Édouard Molinaro in 1978 (5.4 million admissions, alone Midnight Express did better at the French box office that year), La Cage aux Folles has cult status. It is, for many, a significant work of French comic heritage.
“A film that makes fun of a couple of men. What's so funny? »
For others, and in particular a part of the gay public, she is a caricature, viewed with distrust. From the start, she had her detractors. The gay activist Alain Burosse did not hesitate to spill the contents of a trash can on Jean Poiret's head, as recalled in the documentary Thanks Zaza! The crazy story of “La Cage aux Folles” broadcast last year on Paris Première.
On the back of his latest autobiographical book, All silences do not make the same noise, published this fall, the author, poet and doctor Baptiste Beaulieu, writes: “You are an 8 year old boy. One Sunday evening, with your family, you watch a film that makes fun of a couple of men. What's so funny? » The film in question is The Crazy Cage. Baptiste Beaulieu, 39 years old today, recounts in one of the chapters of “Where the tears go when they dry” to what extent watching this comedy marked and affected him. He sees his loved ones laughing out loud. He, who knows that he likes boys, is taken aback. He says, “Oh, that's disgusting,” hoping that his parents will reassure him and tell him that two men together is nothing disgusting. But they don't respond and that hurts the child. So much so that, as an adult, he kept his memory of it intact.
A “progressive” side
If we adopt another point of view, by replacing La Cage aux Folles in France in the 1970s, we can find a revolutionary side to it. Homosexuality was then considered since 1960 – and remained so until the early 1980s – as a “social scourge”, in the same way as alcoholism, drug addiction or tuberculosis. In Thanks Zaza! Alain Burosse considered, with hindsight, that the plot written by Jean Poiret had “a “progressive” side, but only in quotation marks, because it must be seen that there was nothing else at the time, we were in a homosexual culture of nothingness. »
The piece appeared at a time when gay activism was undergoing a transformation. Arcadie, the first French homosexual association, created in 1954, focused on respectability so that society would accept non-heterosexual people. May 68 and the Stonewall riots in the United States, a founding event for the LGBT+ movement in the United States, changed the situation. On March 10, 1971, gay and lesbian activists from the Women's Liberation Movement (MLF) disrupted Ménie Grégoire's show live on RTL, the theme of which that day was: “Homosexuality, this painful problem “. The Fhar (Homosexual Front of Revolutionary Action) was born at that time, calling for homosexual identity to be conceived as a political identity.
“Ode to diversity”
It would be an exaggeration to suggest that La Cage au Folles by Jean Poiret demonstrates activism, but the fact remains that it features a male couple and speaks directly about same-sex parenthood. This is the starting point of the story: Albin and his companion Renato are preparing to meet the parents of Andréa, the girl that their son Laurent is about to marry. What memoirs tend to forget is that the son's future father-in-law is a Conservative MP. And the play makes fun of this reactionary character, played by Michel Galabru, who will end up… disguised as a drag queen to escape the journalists who are waiting for him in front of La Cage aux Folles – the plot takes place in the apartment adjoining this nightclub. night.
“It’s ultramodern,” said seven years ago, to 20 MinutesDidier Roth-Bettoni. The author of Homosexuality in cinema (La Musardine editions) then spoke about the film: “This comedy is the first feature film which establishes the idea of the homosexual couple, of two men who have been together for a long time, who have a child. He also praised Michel Serrault's performance: “He transcends his character of Zaza Napoli, who assumes everything and apologizes for nothing. The success owes a lot to his genius as an actor. Besides, when Didier Bourdon and Christian Clavier took over the piece, it worked less well…”
It all depends on what we say, but also on how we tell it. And La Cage aux Folles who will settle at the Théâtre du Châtelet is well aware of this. At least judging by the note of intent on the establishment's website recalling that the show will be an adaptation of the booklet by Americans Jerry Herman and Harvey Fierstein, “two defenders of LGBTQI+ rights” who, in 1983, adapted the French play into an American-style musical, making it “an ode to diversity”.
“It’s time to open the closet”
What spectators will see in a year will have nothing to do with caricatures of homosexuality. The presentation of the show insists on the fact that it will not be “locked into the clichés conveyed by theater or cinema”. This new production “translated and directed by Olivier Py, reinscribes the work in its context: the cabaret”.
And to insist: “On stage, Zaza sings and dances, but in the city, the artist raises the question of same-sex parenthood and declares the unconditional love of the parent for the child, beyond gender assignments. . » A statement which was already relevant forty years ago and which remains so at a time when moral panics about drag queens but also trans people are particularly acute.
“La Cage aux Folles remains an eminently political work,” states the note of intent. It is this dimension that Olivier Py explores, at a time when the question of LGBTQI+ rights is being called into question all over the world. » In other words, those who expect to laugh at homosexuals will be at a loss. It will be about laughing with them.
“It’s time to open the closet,” proclaims the Théâtre du Châtelet. A responsibility that falls to Laurent Lafitte who will play Albin and his cabaret alter ego, Zaza Napoli.
