The day after the Supreme Court’s decision on DOMA and Prop 8, I watched the Richmond Triangle Players’ production of La Cage aux Folles .
Via: Scott Baty/Buzzfeed
Judging from all the gray-haired men and women slowly getting out of their cars and walking arm-in-arm down the sidewalk, it looks like I am, unwittingly, going to a Sunday morning church service. Except it's a Thursday evening. And, as far as I can tell, this is Richmond's warehouse district, nary a church in sight. After I check the street address for the Richmond Triangle Players on my iPhone one more time before the battery dies, I fall in line with old people and headed for the door, which boasts, "If we didn't do it, who would?"
RTP has been doing "it" since 1993: producing almost 100 plays, each intended to introduce gay themes and culture to the former capital of the Confederate States of America. Tonight's offering is another sold-out performance of La Cage aux Folles, best summed up as a musical comedy about a gay nightclub owner, his drag queen husband, their straight son, his fiancée, and her decidedly homophobic parents.
In spite of its brick warehouse façade — three years ago, this building was a radiator shop — the theater the Richmond Triangle Players call home is all down-home glitz and spot-lit glamour inside: Polished counters, framed show posters, and black suede curtains play counterpoint to the building's cinder-block walls and fluorescent lights. A tattoo-sleeved bartender takes your order before opening curtain and will remember it — Jameson neat, please — when you come back during intermission. The little old woman I saw just moments ago on the street is sipping her cosmo while her husband flips through the program. A few rows ahead, a black lesbian couple shares a laugh with the usher. The audience is made up, mostly, of straight couples above the age of 40. Plaid shirts and khaki pants abound.
Via: Scott Baty/Buzzfeed
I slip backstage to watch the cast and crew in the frantic 10 minutes before opening curtain. In the dressing room, I ask Dan Stackhouse, who plays Francis in the show, about the seemingly very straight crowd. "We're later in the run now," he says. "The gay crowds came for the first few weeks and loved it, then — I think — word got out to their straight friends."
With just seven minutes to go, Philip Baraoidan, a lithe dancer with more energy than the packed dressing room can contain, comes running in. "And now," announces a fellow cast member over his shoulder loud enough for everyone to hear, "you'll see what it looks like for a man to get in drag in less than seven minutes!"
Wigs are being strapped on like war helmets, men are gasping as the stays on their corsets are tightened, and it's all done with the ease of performers who have found a way to do what they love.
