What’s remarkable about director Robert O’Hara’s new production of La Cage aux Folles is not that it features an all-Black cast, with cultural references to everyone from Beyoncé to Dreamgirls to double-dutch that seem appropriate for a show supposedly set in a present-day drag club along the French Riviera. Rather, the new Encores! revival at New York City Center marks the first time I’ve seen the stars of Jerry Herman’s 1983 musical convincingly portray a long-time gay couple whose relationship feels genuinely passionate. Billy Porter and Wayne Brady are also the first Albin and Georges I’ve seen who identify as queer themselves, which perhaps accounts for the authentic feelings of mutual gay desire.

Porter is a fey, fan-snapping delight, though he seemed to be suffering some vocal strain at the performance I attended. Brady, meanwhile, proved both a comedic and vocal charmer in a role that often recedes into the background. (He also injects some of his signature impressions, at one point mimicking the hunched-shoulder posture of Steve Harvey.) They play off each other wonderfully, squeezing new punchlines out of a book that sometimes drags between musical numbers. And that’s not because of the icky homophobia of a story that demands the couple to “straighten up” for a visit by the arch-conservative future in-laws of Georges’s son, Jean-Michel, whom they’ve both raised since birth. Alaman Diadhiou sings and dances well, but there’s no escaping the anachronistic caddishness of his role.

It’s a joy to hear Herman’s bouncy score, performed with verve by a 30-piece orchestra under Joseph Joubert’s baton. Is there a showstopper number more ebullient than “The Best of Times Is Now”? That second-act anthem of optimism and defiance almost dispels the bitter taste from the regressive turns of the plot. And Edgar Godineaux supplies some ballroom-inflected, post-Jellicle Ball choreography for the club’s Cagelles, played by a very-2026 range of drag and trans and female performers who don’t get enough room on the cramped stage to really show off their moves (or the so-so costumes by Clint Ramos and Michelle Ridley and mixed-period wig designs by Robert Pickens).

With more rehearsal time than Encores! allows, the team behind this production might have honed the material into a zippier, more polished gem. (Personally, I long to see a more interactive version, akin to the recent Cabaret revival on Broadway, that invites theatergoers to wander backstage as the Cagelles prepare for their show.) La Cage aux Folles is worth revisiting, even if its best times are somewhere in the past (or still to come). ★★★☆☆

LA CAGE AUX FOLLES
New York City Center, Off Broadway
Running time: 2 hours, 50 minutes (with one intermission)
Tickets on sale through June 28 for $45 to $250