If you were a Broadway producer circa 2022, you might have come up with the idea to update Billy Wilder, I.A.L. Diamond, and Robert Thoeren’s classic screwball comedy, Some Like It Hot(1959) and turn it into a gay musical, something more gay than it already was.
The film had plenty of music from its premise of an all-girl band, an incandescent ukulele-strumming Marilyn Monroe, a Depression-era setting, and two musicians on the run from the mob who see their escape in donning dresses and joining the girls. It’s the perfect setting for a musical comedy. It has panto disguises, mistaken identity, two simultaneous love stories, and a chase scene. But this is the 21st century, how to freshen the 20th century and make it relevant, make it current, make it now.
Well, how about adding some D.E.I.? Broadway now-a-days is the repository of colorblind casting. Let’s make Sugar, band leader Sweet Sue, and Jerry/Daphne black. Not bad for a start, but history has to be forgotten for this idea to work. How about train travel back then, and hotel accommodations, and those swanky nightclubs where the band is booked? But wait. This is a musical comedy, a fantasy of fun, non-stop tap dancing, and continuous bursts of song, so those nagging questions can be shoved into the background while we cover these discrepancies with a few lines of exposition, a snappy witticism or two, and then we can forget about them. Quick, back to the tap and the song. The audience won’t have time to think. Bring out the old razzle-dazzle, and they’ll never catch wise.
But Jerry/Daphne is a whole new problem to solve. When he dons his drag, he evolves. The sequins, the bias-cut gowns, and the obsessive attention from millionaire Osgood to this new persona brings out his true self. He likes his reflection in the mirror. He revels in it. When Osgood serenades him with “Fly, Mariposa, Fly,” the butterfly motif transforms him. Finally, this is his authentic self. “You Coulda Knocked Me Over With a Feather,” is his coming-out anthem.
Yet, he never tells Osgood the truth. In the movie’s final scene, Daphne and Osgood speed away on his motorboat. Daphne tells him all his faults and why romance is not a good idea. Osgood shrugs away these excuses. Exasperated, Jerry pulls off his wig. “Osgood, I’m a man.” In one of filmdom’s best exit lines, Osgood replies without missing a beat, “Well, nobody’s perfect.” End of movie. The musical fudges this terribly. Jerry doesn’t confess. Osgood, in almost a throw-away, says “You’re perfect.” What a downer and a cop-out. We’re not even in 1959 anymore. This reads like 1939.
Looking past these faults, though, the musical keeps trudging onward with another glittering routine, more spangly costumes, another backdrop brought in. It looks like an expensive Broadway show, stylish and clever, probably because the creative team are Tony-winning showbiz veterans: director/choreographer Casey Nicholaw (Book of Mormon, Drowsy Chaperone, Aladdin); composer/co-lyricist Marc Shaiman (Hairspray); book writer Mathew Lopez (The Inheritance) and Amber Ruffin; co-lyricist Scott Wittman (Hairspray and Catch Me If You Can); scenic designer Scott Pask (Book of Mormon, Coast of Utopia); costume designer Gregg Barnes (Kinky Boots, Follies); lighting designer Natasha Katz (Hello, Dolly; The Prom). A veritable gallery of Broadway royalty.
So why then is this show rather drab and uninspiring, never catching fire nor sending off any sparks. It’s probably the casting. Both Matt Loehr (Joe and Josephine) and Leandra Ellis-Gaston (Sugar) are in the wrong show. He’s not dashing enough nor pretty enough; she’s got the beauty but, unfortunately a whiny vocal hitch in her throat that sounds as if she’s just inhaled a hit of helium. A bombshell who sounds like Betty Boop.
As Jerry/Daphne, Tavis Kordell has a striking presence – and wearing a Josephine Baker hairdo in the closing number in that A-lister shimmering white satin gown looks ready for Ru Paul — but they/their projection is weak in the dialogue passages, although the pop star top notes could shatter glass. DeQuina Moore (Sweet Sue) goes all-out Sophie Tucker growl in her songs; while Edward Juvier stops the show as Osgood whenever he shakes his booty or croons to Daphne. He’s the unique one in this musical, and his presence is sorely needed.
Shaiman’s ‘30s-era pastiche songs are good and catchy, if not entirely memorable, but are enhanced by the radiant orchestrations from Charlie Rosen, Bryan Carter, and Glen Kelly. It’s as if you’ve switched on the radio to the Starlight Ballroom or the Coconut Grove. Their splendid orchestrations won a deserved Tony award.
Nicholaw’s tap dances are crisp and clean and performed flawlessly. Although the “chase sequence” borrows shamelessly from Jerome Robbins’ “Bathing Beauty Ballet” in High Button Shoes (1947) with its slamming doors and wild carousing, Nicholaw smartly has his mobsters and our protagonists tapping instead of running after each other. And the Fred and Ginger tribute during “Dance the World Away,” hardly resembles any romance danced by Astaire and Rogers in their RKO days. They only tapped in specialty numbers, not when gliding across the soundstage’s Bakelite floors.
Some Like It Hot played a year on Broadway but never returned its investment, although it won four Tonys: choreography, costumes, orchestrations, and best leading actor in a musical, J. Harrison Ghee, as Jerry/Daphne. For all the talent involved, the show never caught on and played to diminishing audiences in its final months. The touring musical is fun and certainly enjoyable for a night at the theater, even as it goes wobbly. Well, nobody’s perfect.
Some Like It Hot continues through March 29 at 7:30 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday; 2 p.m. Saturday; and 1:30 p.m. and 7 p.m. Sunday at the Hobby Center, 800 Bagby. For more information, call 713-315-7625 or visit thehobbycenter.org or broadwayatthehobbycenter.com. $55-$131.