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Harvey Fierstein does a worthy job bolstering the story line of the 2005 movie Kinky Boots about a transvestite who saves a failing British shoe factory, but the reason to see this Tony Award-winning musical is the debut of pop composer Cyndi Lauper as a Broadway songwriter.
The Broadway graveyard is riddled with the failed attempts by so many pop stars to pen a legitimate musical score, but the quirky, waif-like Lauper manages that deceptively difficult task with seeming ease. Of course she can come up with a catchy sound and a driving beat to match, but she also understands the way a theater song needs a narrative and emotional through line. Listen to “Not My Father’s Son,” a duet between the odd couple of the young man who has inherited his dad’s comatose shoemaking firm and the flamboyant cross-dresser with his own father-son issues, and you will understand.
The national tour of Kinky Boots is at the Arsht Center this week and it arrives at the Broward Center for a fortnight, March 1-13. Care has clearly been taken in casting and staging, resulting in a very entertaining production of an endearing, though not brilliant, musical.
As in the movie, Charlie Price (Adam Kaplan) wants nothing to do with the Northampton men’s shoe mill his father is grooming him to take over. He almost escapes to London with his material girl girlfriend Nicola when his dad’s abrupt death reels him back to take over the plant. When he learns the business is close to dying as well, he almost shuts it down and strands the local workers, when he is persuaded to retool and target a niche market — high heel boots for style-conscious drag queens.
Pushing for such a resuscitation is a transvestite named Lola (J. Harrison Ghee), a remarkably self-confident character who lands in Northampton like an alien arriving on earth. He sings his philosophy of boot design in the infectious “Sex Is in the Heel” and when he is not singing, he is imparting life lessons about the range of ways to be a man.
On Broadway, Tony winner Billy Porter was so commanding as Lola that he all but obliterated Stark Sands’ Charlie. On tour, Ghee is slightly more human-scale than Porter and Kaplan is far more compelling than Sands, resulting in greater balance between the two principals, which helps the show immeasurably.
In scene-stealing support is winsome Tiffany Engen as Lauren, the factory worker with a secret crush on Charlie. Director-choreographer Jerry Mitchell again casts someone reminiscent of Lauper, who scores an indelible hit with her one solo, “The History of Wrong Guys,” which is bound to have a life outside of the show.
Adding considerable show biz flash to the musical are Lola’s six back-up drag queens, the Angels, who Mitchell keep in near-perpetual motion with a tip of his hat to La Cage aux Folles’ Cagelles. The Angels are a gift to costume designer Gregg Barnes, who makes sure they sparkle plenty, in distinct contrast to the drab wardrobe of the local factory crew.
Frankly, the second act meanders a bit, putting obstacles in Charlie and Lola’s way, marking time until the (sort of) suspenseful Milan runway introduction of Price & Son’s new line of boots. A tangent at a pub where Lola has to prove himself as a boxer is a particularly egregious time-waster. But otherwise, this walk on the kinky side makes for a rousing night of musical theater.
KINKY BOOTS runs through Sunday, Dec. 13, at the Adrienne Arsht Center for the Performing Arts, 1300 Biscayne Blvd., Miami. $29-$145. (305)-949-6672.