Did you hear the one about the drag queen who saves a failing British shoe factory, and in so doing teaches the owner and his employees a lesson in acceptance?
That’s what happen in Kinky Boots, first a 2005 British indie film and later a stage musical. The latter, with an uber-catchy score by theater composer rookie Cyndi Lauper and a message-laden script from Harvey Fierstein, is in its fifth year on Broadway while its road company spends the week at the Kravis Center’s Dreyfoos Hall.
The show hardly ventures into new ground – imagine a cross between La Cage aux Folles and The Full Monty – but such an entertaining musical that slips in the theme of tolerance towards those with alternative lifestyles is always welcome. Factor in brisk direction and Tony-winning choreography by Jerry Mitchell and you have a show with surprisingly mainstream appeal.
At the show’s center is an odd couple: There’s Charlie Price, a conventional young man who reluctantly inherits his dad’s dying shoe factory, and Lola, a self-assured drag queen with his own father-son issues. With the company’s footwear sales in steep decline, Lola convinces Charlie to retool for a niche market – high-heel boots for fashion-conscious cross-dressers.
The male employees at the Northampton shoe plant are eager to keep their jobs, but they hate the idea of this new product and recoil even more from unapologetically different Lola. Will the workers come around to “her” viewpoint? Will the factory be saved? Is Kinky Boots a musical with commercial intentions?
Take a guess.
Fierstein’s book is well-crafted and pointed in its attitude, but it is Lauper’s score that is the revelation. With far more success than other pop composers, she makes the transition to writing for the stage. Without compromising her light rock sound, she shows an ability to infuse character into a song while deepening the story with emotional truths.
Listen to “Not My Father’s Son,” a duet for Charlie and Lola about their similar scars from defying parental expectations, and be impressed by Lauper’s dramatic skills. Or “The History of Wrong Guys,” sung by a factory cutie named Lauren with a background of ill-advised romantic entanglements. With these two numbers alone, Lauper establishes herself as a theater composer to be reckoned with.
The road show at the Kravis delivers the full Broadway experience of Kinky Boots, thanks in large part to the larger-than-life performance by Timothy Ware as Lola. His bulging biceps and pronounced Adam’s apple make him an unlikely drag queen, but Ware quickly turns us into believers. He sings with authority and moves well in those daunting high heels.
Like Billy Porter on Broadway, Ware overshadows his co-star, Curt Hansen (Charlie). Hansen is talented – note the ferocity he brings to his 11 o’clock solo, “Soul of a Man” – but the role is destined to come in a distant second to Lola. Rose Hemingway is a natural scene-stealer as Lauren and burly Aaron Walpole is an apt stand-in for all the workers that have to learn what it is to be a man.
Gregg Barnes rises to the task of costuming Lola with head-turning garb, both onstage and in daily life, and David Rockwell’s factory set manages to be both drab and colorful. Regardless of your taste in kinky, this is a musical that serves up a rousing night of musical theater.
KINKY BOOTS, Kravis Center Dreyfoos Hall, 701 Okeechobee Blvd., West Palm Beach. Through Sunday. $27 and up. 561-832-7469.