Drag queens are bringing a splash of colour to Canada's biggest theatre festival, in a classic play with modern relevance. Some of Canada's most prominent drag queens consulted on Stratford Festivals' La Cage aux Folles , which features an all-male chorus made up of nine men performing in 10 different drag outfits. The musical is based on a French play of the same name, which won six Tony Awards after premiering on Broadway in 1983 and was also the source for the Oscar-nominated 1996 film The Birdcage.
The show's drag consultant Justin Miller, also known by his performance name Pearl Harbour, says he is "immensely proud" to bring his craft to Stratford, Ont. The plot follows a young couple who want to get married, but have parents from very different backgrounds — one an ultra-conservative family, and another with a patriarch named Albin, who is the star performer at a drag club in Saint-Tropez, France. Georges, the club's manager and Albin's partner, decides to feign being straight when his son arrives with his fiancée and her conservative parents.
A stagehand hangs a faux fur prop after a rehearsal for the stage production of La Cage aux Folles, at the Avon Theatre in Stratford, Ont. (Evan Mitsui/CBC) 'It's unfortunate that it's still radical' "This show broke such ground in the early [1980s], which we have to remember was at the very beginning of the AIDS crisis, as well. There was such othering and such fear.
And this is a beautiful love story between two men, radical.
