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      Review: In ‘Some Like It Hot,’ an Invitation to Liberation

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      A Broadway musical version of the Billy Wilder film finds exhilarating new ways to make the gender comedy sing.Not for nothing is the 1959 Billy Wilder film “Some Like It Hot” a classic. A crime caper in which two musicians, having witnessed a mob wipeout, must flee Chicago for their lives, it ingeniously and delicately (though boldly for its time) opens the Pandora’s box of gender ambiguity by having them make their escape in drag. They join a traveling all-girl band.For the sax player Joe, the heels, the wig and the alias Josephine are just exigent props; for Wilder, they’re an opportunity to dress his worldliness in winky men-in-masquerade guffaws. But something unexpected happens when Jerry, the bass player, meaning to present himself as Geraldine, finds the name Daphne popping out of his mouth. What happens is: He likes it.That great moment — quiet, funny, revelatory — also occurs in the obviously-a-hit new musical “Some Like It Hot,” which opened on Broadway at the Shubert Theater on Sunday. As Jerry-cum-Daphne, J. Harrison Ghee plays the moment lightly yet fully, without losing the laugh. But it lands in a world so vastly different from Wilder’s, and in a version of the story so vastly retuned to address that world, that it seems like something much bigger. It’s an invitation, as is the show overall, to a new and intersectional stage of liberation.Not to put too much weight on what is in many ways a standard-issue Broadway musical comedy circa 1959: often silly, sometimes shaggy, but with entertainment always the top note. That’s a pretty high standard, after all, and in its staging (by Casey Nicholaw), its revamped plot (by Matthew López and Amber Ruffin) and especially its songs (by Marc Shaiman and Scott Wittman), “Some Like It Hot” clears the bar handily. At least in the first act, the show is an unstoppable train, blowing right past local stations where you might have a moment to wonder exactly where you’re headed.Instead, you soak in those songs, which, like the ones Shaiman and Wittman wrote for “Hairspray” and “Smash” and the underloved “Fame Becomes Me,” are pretty much all knockouts. To establish Joe (Christian Borle, inventively funny) and Jerry as “brothers” of different races, bonded by annoyance as much as affection, we get a nifty song-and-dance number called “You Can’t Have Me (if You Don’t Have Him)” in the Roger Edens MGM style. A long and delightful tap sequence midsong lets you know that Nicholaw is going to pummel you with pleasure before massaging you with message.NaTasha Yvette Williams, the leader of the band, introduces the show’s freedom-for-everyone philosophy.Marc J. Franklin/Polk & Co., via Associated PressLikewise Sweet Sue, the leader of the all-girl band, gets a brace of hot jazz numbers that NaTasha Yvette Williams, accompanied by the braying brass and dirty saxes of a fantastic 17-piece orchestra, knocks out of the park while incidentally introducing the show’s freedom-for-everyone philosophy. (The setting has been moved to 1933 from 1929 to coincide with the end of Prohibition.) Her tunestack includes a title song about the various temperatures of love that goes so far past being an earworm that it winds up drilling your amygdala.Best of all, for Sugar Kane, the band’s lead singer and Joe’s wolfish crush, the songwriters offer a clutch of sultry Harold Arlen-style blues. That’s smart for the newly conceived Sugar, who is Black, but also for Adrianna Hicks, who plays her. In dissipating the Marilyn Monroe aura that might otherwise cling to the material from her famous turn in the movie, they give Hicks — last seen as the Beyoncé-like Catherine of Aragon in “Six” — a completely compelling aura of her own.At the same time, López and Ruffin’s book is subtly building an argument that links the original story about gender to an aligned one about race. Jerry, who is Black, is not necessarily welcome in the same places his white “brother” Joe is. The vastly built-up character of Sue must likewise face down the bigotry of locals who try to cheat her, while also educating clueless allies. When one of the band members wonders whether they will be heading south from Chicago, Sue zings, “It’s 1933. Look at me and ask that again.”So instead of Florida, where the movie settles, the show heads to California. There the changes to the story pile up. If you know the bland musical “Sugar,” an earlier, more faithful adaptation of the same material, you may be glad of the liberties, even if they come with some unintended consequences.From left: Raena White on the trumpet, Ghee as Daphne on the bass and Adrianna Hicks as Sugar Kane, the band’s lead singer.Marc J. Franklin/Polk & Co., via Associated PressTake Osgood Fielding III, the millionaire who falls in love with Daphne. Now provided with a substantial back story — he’s Mexican American, justifying a detour to a south-of-the-border cantina — he’s less of a lecher than a case study in laissez-faire sexuality. On the upside, we thus get Kevin Del Aguila’s adorably goofy line readings and eccentric, wiggly dancing. On the downside, the movie’s killer last line, in which Osgood accepts Daphne with the phrase “Nobody’s perfect,” is now tucked into an earlier lyric and lost in the shuffle.And it’s quite a shuffle: Nicholaw has loaded the show to bursting with dance. By the time he delivers a five-minute chase sequence near the end of the second act, with gangsters and bellhops and nonstop tapping, you may feel that trading the darker comedy of the movie — literally darker, with its claustrophobic black-and-white cinematography — for the soufflé textures of Broadway entertainment was a Faustian bargain. Fabulous as the visual production is, with Art Deco sets by Scott Pask, Technicolor lights by Natasha Katz and eye-popping costumes by Gregg Barnes, it keeps squeezing out the story’s quirkier soul.Still, we get the message, mostly from Ghee, a nonbinary performer who carefully traces Jerry’s transformation into Daphne, and then the merging of the two identities into a third that takes us into territory that’s far more complex than jokey drag. All the while, Jerry maintains a sense of wonder about the changes happening within him that makes the journey feel welcoming for those of us watching. “You Could Have Knocked Me Over With a Feather,” a song summing up the character’s epiphanies, is a highlight of the show’s final quarter, which is otherwise somewhat overloaded with competing 11 o’clock numbers.Ultimately, it’s the epiphanies and insights that make it possible to enjoy, without too much guilt, the flat-out entertainment of “Some Like It Hot,” including its groaners, overemphasis and old-school gags. How smart it is, for instance, to have Daphne demonstrate the spectrum of gender by singing, simply, “I crossed a border.” (Smart too, to have it sung in the scene set in Mexico.) And how satisfying it is to have Osgood link his identity issues so succinctly with hers: “The world reacts to what it sees,” he says, “and in my experience the world doesn’t have very good eyesight.”Perhaps not, but some of its artists have a damn fine ear.Some Like It HotAt the Shubert Theater, Manhattan; somelikeithotmusical.com. Running time: 2 hours 30 minutes. More

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      ‘Some Like It Hot’ Musical Plans Fall Opening on Broadway

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      Christian Borle, J. Harrison Ghee and Adrianna Hicks will star in a stage adaptation of the 1959 film comedy about two musicians on the run.A new musical adaptation of “Some Like It Hot,” a classic cross-dressing comedy that is being recalibrated for contemporary audiences, will start performances in November and open in December on Broadway, the show’s producers said Wednesday.The musical will star Christian Borle (a two-time Tony winner, for “Peter and the Starcatcher” and “Something Rotten!”) and J. Harrison Ghee (“Kinky Boots”) as two musicians fleeing the mob after witnessing a gangland massacre, and Adrianna Hicks (“Six”) as a singer they befriend. In the acclaimed 1959 film, those roles were played by Tony Curtis, Jack Lemmon and Marilyn Monroe.The production, first announced four years ago, has faced challenges on its path to Broadway: One of the original producers, Craig Zadan, died; the pandemic prompted the cancellation of a pre-Broadway run in Chicago; and the whole question of how jokes about men dressing as women work has become increasingly contested.“It’s a complicated picture, bracingly ahead of its time in some ways, wincingly dated in others,” A.O. Scott, a critic at large and the co-chief film critic for The New York Times, wrote in 2020.The job of reimagining the story, still set in Prohibition-era Chicago, falls to Matthew López, the Tony-winning writer of “The Inheritance,” and Amber Ruffin, the writer and talk show host. The songs are by Marc Shaiman and Scott Wittman, who previously wrote the Tony-winning score for “Hairspray.”Casey Nicholaw, the Tony-winning director of “The Book of Mormon,” will direct and choreograph.“Some Like It Hot” is being produced by the Shubert Organization and Neil Meron, along with MGM on Stage, Roy Furman, Robert Greenblatt, James L. Nederlander and Kenny Leon. The musical will be capitalized for up to $17.5 million, according to a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.The show is scheduled to begin performances Nov. 1 and to open Dec. 11 at the Shubert Theater. More

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      ‘Mrs. Doubtfire’ Review: Nanny Doesn’t Know Best

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      The new family-friendly musical, adapted from the hit movie, ends up cowering in the original film’s shadow.In 1993, a film about an irresponsible father dressing up as a woman to manipulate his way back into his family’s life was a barrel of laughs. A man in a dress? Classic! He does impressions? Even better! He tries to sabotage his wife’s new relationship? Comedy gold!Truly, it was a different time.And that was the main challenge for the stage adaptation of “Mrs. Doubtfire,” a new musical that opened Sunday night at the Stephen Sondheim Theater. With music and lyrics by the brothers Wayne and Karey Kirkpatrick and a book by Karey Kirkpatrick and John O’Farrell, “Mrs. Doubtfire” simultaneously tries to replicate an outdated story and update it for the times. But the show only ends up cowering in the original film’s shadow.And speaking of shadows, there is the outsize one of the incomparable Robin Williams. In the film, Williams brought his endearing playfulness to the role of Daniel Hillard, a struggling actor who lacks discipline as a father. When Daniel’s wife divorces him and is granted custody of their three children, he poses as the kindly but firm Scottish nanny Euphegenia Doubtfire in order to spend time with his kids.Rob McClure steps into Mrs. Doubtfire’s sensible shoes in this production. He’s vivacious on the stage, and his impressions, including a hilarious tongue-wagging Gollum, are precious. But the director Jerry Zaks’s ambivalent production tries to have it both ways: The story of a playful man-child with whom we empathize but whose good intentions can’t excuse his machinations. The film pulled it off at the time, primarily thanks to Williams’s charms. McClure’s Daniel, though, is more irritating than entertaining, and his antics — which include hacking into his wife’s email account to sabotage her nanny search — are more creepy than kooky.McClure as the title character, with, from left: Analise Scarpaci, Jake Ryan Flynn, Jenn Gambatese and Avery Sell.Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesBut would Williams have fared much better in 2021, when the toxicity of this male character’s actions would raise alarms?That strain is everywhere in this production, whose 18-month pandemic hiatus coincided with renewed conversations about race, gender and equity.When Daniel asks his gay brother Frank (an amiable Brad Oscar) and brother-in-law Andre (a stylish J. Harrison Ghee) to latex-silicone-and-powder him into womanhood (the impressive makeup and prosthetics design is by Tommy Kurzman), they casually support what seems to be Daniel’s new interest in drag — until they hear his true intentions.Frank and Andre — who get a paper-thin story line about adopting a child, by the way — are very loosely meant to serve as the gay conscience of a decidedly hetero production. So they go along with the scheme, occasionally popping in for some comic relief. In one number, they also get a personal ensemble of male stylists snapping and flicking their wrists, because even the show’s gay stereotypes are dull.Lines from the movie about Mrs. Doubtfire having a penis have been excised, and in a surface-level attempt to make Daniel’s long-suffering wife, Miranda (Jenn Gambatese), a more feminist and sympathetic figure, the show’s creators have made her the owner of a body-positive activewear line called “M Body.” The pseudo-feminist song that she sings during a fashion show, “Shape of Things to Come,” is a painfully punny inspirational poster masquerading as a piece of music.Five Movies to Watch This WinterCard 1 of 51. “The Power of the Dog”: More