The Show, October 8, 2012

(Photo credit: Paul Kolnik)

For years he was a film great - the archetypal Handsome Harry (ask your mothers or aunts). Then he was a running gag in the Doonesbury comic strip (jokes about tanning). But the thing that defined him - star quality - never left George Hamilton. And here he is, this week, in La Cage aux folles, a musical adaptation of a movie that was adapted from a play. Hamilton is not all that is fun about this upcoming production - the story of two aging Gay men confronted with the horror of their straight son marrying (into an arch-conservative family). The songs are great. ("I am what I am" is, of course, an anthem.) The costumes, set and lighting are 100% showbiz, and, ultimately, this farce has a very touching core. It's naughty, it's nice, it's sugar and spice, it's family-friendly for the new millennium.