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I Am What I Am: the Jerry Herman anthem that anyone can own

With its defiant, irresistible, glitter-ball spirit, the La Cage aux Folles showstopper has been embraced at Pride marches and the Paralympics – and defined many a diva

I was leaving a wedding when I heard that Broadway legend Jerry Herman had died, which feels about right. I Am What I Am, his signature anthem from La Cage aux Folles, is a song to be scaled whenever drink has been taken and identity totters: by a spangled diva in the spotlight, a club kid staking a claim, a bridesmaid clinging desperately to dignity. Anxious, defiant, you stare into the dazzle, hitch up your tits and sing.

La Cage is a Feydeau farce with show tunes, pitting a cabaret queen against the moral majority, with a book by Harvey Fierstein (who later lent his gravel-pit register to the song on Broadway). When drag queen Albin is disinvited from his own son’s wedding, he refuses to shuffle out of the picture. One draft speech included the line, “I am what I am and there’s nothing I can do.” Herman’s synapses rippled. “Hold everything,” he exclaimed. “I want to take those five words, if you will give them to me … I can write you a first-act closer that will be a killer because I feel that emotion in me.” The next morning, he gathered everyone in his 61st Street studio and sang through the mounting choruses. “The reaction was cataclysmic.”

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from Culture | The Guardian https://ift.tt/2MFBL9z
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