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Nobody who saw the original production of Jerry Herman's musical on Broadway could forget its opening. Up went the curtain on a line of human butterflies looking as feminine as feminine in their exotic finery, only for them to sing "We are what we are" in voices that were incongruously tenor or bass.
Why, then, does Terry Johnson's revival introduce its nightclub dancers by transforming them into silhouettes behind a thin pink curtain, and so start by botching the point of a piece that's all about the oddities and inconsistencies of sexual identity?
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Farce comes after Act I has almost too painstakingly set up the situation. Philip Quast's wearily laid-back Georges, who is the club's owner and Albin's long-time lover, has a son who wants to marry.
© Times Newspapers Ltd.
