Oh 1984–I have such mixed feelings about the shows of this year. We’ve got two shows that were duking it out for the win–La Cage, and Sondheim’s Sundays in the Park with George. The first is socially revolutionary, the second is artistically flawless.
La Cage was an extremely brave show to have out in 1984–an attempt to humanize gay men at the beginning of the AIDS crisis, and also a love letter to a time that was about to be over, and also looking forward to how society would change. In 1984 the idea of two gay men raising a child together was foreign to middle class America, and positive portrayals of gay men were few and far between. This was right at the time that AIDS was first coming into public consciousness–in fact 1984 was the year that AIDS got its name–before it was known as Gay Related Immunodeficiency Disease (GRID).
I don’t think anybody can know what a dark time that was. There was a disease where the causes weren’t even completely known yet, and whole groups of friends would grow suddenly ill and disappear. People were afraid and suspicious, and for a long time there seemed to be little progress in understanding much less fighting this disease. The president was receptive, and homophobia reared its head (one of the first gay jokes I ever heard was that it stood for got aids yet?) I was just a child then, but I knew I was gay relatively early and in the eighties identifying as gay was akin to signing your own death warrant.
And no, this comedy doesn’t come close to touching the subject of AIDS, but it went a long way towards showing gay men as ordinary people, and putting on a comedy showing things being the norm was so refreshing in that time. Plus I just adore Harvey Fierstein–his gruff campy sense of humor is all over this show, and that’s the biggest reason it shines.
The score? It’s ok. It has one big song I Am What I Am, which despite sounding like Popeye should sing it, is a rousing pride anthem. It’s really very conservative–very necessarily so, because this show is all about making gay men approachable. However, sometimes it’s too conservative, many of the songs would have fit in shows 20 years before this, and a lot of the songs repeat.
For all the reasons above this show deserved the Tony. (Besides it was a smash). However, I’m divided with Sundays in the Park with George–Sondheim’s most personal creation and his artistic peak. The score here just shines–the sounds, as odd as they are, fit the show, and in 100 years I wouldn’t be surprised to find that Sundays in the Park was still relevant, while La Cage would seem like a cultural oddity.
Jerry Herman (whether purposefully or by accident) ruffled a few feathers by saying that “the simple hummable tune was still alive and well on Broadway.” This innocuous statement can be read as thumbing his nose at Sondheim who was known for making music that was most definitely NOT hummable. Personally, I don’t really get into the whole sophisticated vs. simple argument. Jerry Herman and Stephen Sondheim are music makers that have completely different approaches and both of them succeed or fail in their own ways and there’s room enough for both of them in this world.
pewterbreath 
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