Interview: Sam Pinkleton on Creating a “Joy Machine” With La Cage aux Folles

When Pasadena Playhouse’s artistic director Danny Feldman asked Sam Pinkleton to direct a revival of the 1983 musical La Cage aux Folles, Pinkleton’s initial instinct was to say no. The director of Oh, Mary! and Tony-nominated choreographer of Natasha, Pierre & the Great Comet of 1812 thought it was too big, and he didn’t have a way in. But the more he listened to the album, the more he grew to love it. “I think I filed the show into some completely unfair folder that was like showtunes, whatever, but I looked at the lyrics to ‘A Little More Mascara’ and I was devastated by them,” Pinkleton says.

Realizing the genius of Jerry Herman and Harvey Fierstein’s show, Pinkleton also wanted to right things that he never understood about previous productions of the musical about a gay couple whose son is about to marry the daughter of a conservative. “Frankly, I’ve only ever seen La Cage with straight people at the center of it, which confuses me,” Pinkleton says.

In addition, the Cagelles, the drag performers at the French Riviera nightclub at the center of the musical, are usually a uniform troupe in matching outfits. In Pinkleton’s production, their individuality is on display. “My experience of drag shows is wildly different bodies and abilities and ages, and I got very excited about making a La Cage that felt more reflective of how I have experienced joy in drag clubs,” says Pinkleton.

In this interview, Pinkleton discusses the relationship between Cheyenne Jackson as Georges and Kevin Cahoon as Albin, the importance of bringing joy to an audience, and more.

This conversation has been condensed and edited for clarity.

One thing that struck me in this production was the believable relationship between Cheyenne Jackson and Kevin Cahoon. As a director, what is your role in helping to create that chemistry as a couple?
When we started working on it, I was like, the leads have to be queer people because I felt like I wanted to right a wrong of the legacy of the show. I had a vision of La Cage in my head that was like old dudes in cummerbunds. In fact, it’s a story about people who have been together for 20 years. They’re in their prime. I got excited about thinking about Georges and Albin as guys in their late 40s who are spry, who have this really electric love story. [Jackson and Cahoon] just adore each other, and I do think that you can feel that.

As a choreographer too, did you consider choreographing this yourself?
Never for one second. It’s too fast. It’s three weeks. But also, more importantly, I love working with choreographers. I love having other perspectives, especially in the case of La Cage because the story of it would be that they choreographed it themselves, so it’s not perfect. Ani Taj, the choreographer, is my collaborator of over two decades, so we have such a shorthand that is completely invaluable when you’re making a musical, particularly a musical on this timeline.

This musical is over 40 years old, and in some ways we’d hope that some of the issues would be more dated than they are. Can you talk about doing this show now, especially after the election?
It’s a doozy. I am uninterested in La Cage being an absolute statement on gender or sexuality or politics. I do not think it can hold that and I had no interest in making that. And also, I’m not always sure that that’s what theater is good at. What I do think theater is good at is creating a portal to joy for an audience that is sorely in need of it, and that is a task that I take very seriously. The thing that I was thinking about was not how do we make this topical or how do we make this resonant—if we do our jobs well that will take care of itself. The thing that I was thinking about was how can we make this a surprising, effervescent, idiotic, big-hearted night out for people. Is it a joy machine? Does this help it or hurt it from being a joy machine? I think if we can give people a fun night, that is radical and that is political and that is really hard to do.

Were there any scenes that were particularly challenging for you?
There’s a song at the beginning of Act 2 called “Masculinity” that I really struggled with because I think there’s a trap with the song. It’s the song where Georges tries to coach Albin how to present straight. There’s a way that that scene could be really gross because you’re watching people who love each other encourage people to surrender who they are. And it’s very easy for Georges to become the villain in that scene. And then I realized, wait a second, none of these people know how to be straight. Nobody has a reference point and actually it’s hilarious to them and once we realized no one in this community has ever met a conservative before, they’re just making stuff up, then it became this really fun and kind of liberating exercise.

Congrats as well with all the success of Oh, Mary! How has it been working on both shows at once?
I’m sure people are tired of hearing about it, but Oh, Mary! is the little engine that could. We genuinely did not expect to be running this long. Luckily, it has found its feet and there is a team in New York that is amazing. I love to think that I’m important, but it is fine without me. Oh, Mary! has been an extended graduate school in both making and sustaining theater. I learned so much about what is and isn’t funny and about where the edge is with an audience and how to maintain a show.