Before becoming a film (La Cage aux Folles, by Edouard Molinaro, 1978, followed by La Cage aux Folles 2 and 3, signed by two other filmmakers), a Broadway musical (with the French title retained, libretto by Harvey Fierstein, lyrics and music by Jerry Herman, 1983), then an American film remake (Birdcage, by Mike Nichols, 1996), La Cage aux Folles was a hugely successful boulevard play, playing for five seasons of in a row at the Théâtre du Palais-Royal, in Paris, from 1973 to 1978, before a revival at the Théâtre des Variétés, from 1978 to 1980.
Its author, actor and playwright Jean Poiret, had the idea for this play after seeing L’Escalier, the French adaptation by Louis Velle of Staircase (1966), by the British Charles Dyer. Bertrand Poirot-Delpech, in Le Monde, presented her thus at her Parisian creation, in November 1967: “In the suburbs of London, on a rainy Sunday, two mature hairdressers take turns massaging their faces. They are Charlie and Harry. They are, as they say. »
Poiret had the idea of ??writing the playful counterpart to this rather dark play by transposing it into a cabaret where the two protagonists, who also form an aging homosexual couple, become Albin-Zaza, the transvestite-leader of the review on the return, and his companion, Georges, the boss of the cabaret who gives his name to the play.
Poiret does not immediately think of his old accomplice Michel Serrault and himself to play the two main roles. But this decision, taken following a request from the director of the Théâtre du Palais-Royal, puts their duo back in the saddle – very well known on television in particular, but which had not appeared publicly for a few years – for the greatest happiness of resolutely filled hilarious rooms.
Archives restored
The documentary Thanks Zaza! The crazy story of La Cage aux Folles, by Christophe Duchiron, recalls the genesis and destiny of this mythical show based on numerous restored television archive images (the program is presented as “an INA production for Paris Première” ). Among these, extracts from the sixty-five minutes kept by the National Audiovisual Institute on its Madelen site. We see not only the famous scene of the rusk, but also many other passages of the play – which makes us all the more regretful that it was not then filmed in full.
But thank you Zaza! has above all the quality of putting La Cage aux Folles in perspective, in its time and in ours. The actor Michel Fau, who often performs in drag and considers himself a “tragic clown”, sees Serrault and Poiret as an Augustus and a white clown, in the service of a text of unsuspected depth and darkness. .
The playwright Jean-Marie Besset remembers the horror he felt at what, as a young man, accompanied by his parents to the theater, he had taken for an offensive caricature of homosexuality. Alain Burosse, media man and homosexual activist, had, when the play was created, hated this representation of the male couple and had knocked a trash can over the head of Jean Poiret seated on a terrace…
However, at the same time, the “madwoman” was a term, certainly intra-community but widespread and even claimed: the Gazolines – a very crazy offshoot of the Homosexual Revolutionary Action Front – proclaimed it loud and clear between 1972 and 1974. In 1978 , the Argentinian writer Copi published Le Bal des Folles (Christian Bourgois), etc.
Snapshots and reassessment
Alain Burosse recognizes, however, fifty years later: “There is [in the play] a ‘progressive’ side, but only in quotation marks, because you have to see that there was nothing else at the time, we were in a homosexual culture of nothingness. In this context, I do indeed think that La Cage aux Folles played a role. »
Zaza, whom the new inclusive sociabilities would surely no longer qualify as “crazy”, would she be accepted, recognized and even celebrated today? The documentary does not go that far. On the other hand, we doubt that other shots of the original text, as we hear it in the recording of extracts, would be accepted today.
In particular the humor “Y a bon Banania” (a slogan removed in 2006 by the brand) which sees the black servant Jacob being decked out, among other things, with “my great savage” or “he loves his masters – pitfall that does not mention Merci Zaza! The crazy story of La Cage aux Folles. Large twisted spiral idlers remain a timeless classic; the rest unquestionably requires a reassessment.
Poiret’s text has in any case been the subject of numerous variations and adaptations during revivals of the play – notably in the version with Christian Clavier and Didier Bourdon in 2009 during performances given at the Théâtre de la Porte-Saint-Martin , in Paris – not to mention the improvisations left to the discretion of the performers. Michel Serrault and Jean Poiret added so much some evenings that the piece was, it is said, often lengthened by some forty minutes. Attention, slippery ground… but irresistible.