The 51-year-old actor will play the lead role in the Broadway musical, adapted from the play by Jean Poiret, with music by the composer ofHello, Dolly !
He will achieve his « child’s dream ». Barely a few months after leaving the Comédie-Française, Laurent Lafitte will play Zaza in The Crazy Cage — in a musical comedy version — in December 2025, as director Olivier Py announced on Monday in an interview with Parisian. The actor well known to the French public will therefore play the role of Albin, known as Zaza, made famous by Michel Serrault in the play, then the film written by Jean Poiret in 1973.
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A dream for two
The director of the Théâtre du Châtelet revealed that the project was born two years ago on the set of the film The imaginary Molière. « On an evoked The Crazy Cage, he told me it was his dream, it was also mine », confides Olivier Py. However, « at the time we didn’t have a theater that could offer it to us »explains the man who will be entrusted with management of the Châtelet in February 2023. « I imagine it as a big family show, for Christmas, continues the director. It’s great, intelligent, profound entertainment, comparable to Misérables because it’s for everyone and at the same time, it doesn’t say anything… Like Les MisérablesFrance has shunned the musical a little The Cage », believes Olivier Py. « Because of the film and the play, precisely, he thinks. It was confused, but the public will not be able to not tell the difference ».
« The Crazy Cage became politicized »
The American musical comedy enjoyed immediate success when it premiered on Broadway in 1983. With its 11 Tony Awards in forty years, the show is an adaptation whose music is by Jerry Herman, composer among others ofHello, Dolly ! Building on its success in New York and London, the musical was made into a film starring Robin Williams. But also staged in Paris at the Mogador theater in 1999. The production especially made an impression because it led to the theater filing for bankruptcy. Olivier Py offers a new French translation of the libretto.
« Not much remains of the room », according to Olivier Py. « There is the Moliéresque canvas, extremely intelligent, the situations, some characters but not all, and a text which is not at all the text of La Cage aux fous », he explains, emphasizing that the musical « taken into account the LGBT rights movement ». « Crossing the Atlantic, The Cage became not only funny, but also very emotionally strong, very touching, and then it became politicized, taking into account this demand for rights »declares the director. « It seems written yesterday as it responds to today’s questions when we see how the evolution of LGBT + rights provokes increasingly virulent and violent reactions and backlashes all over the world. ».