Gentlemen prefer … the movie.
The wobbly quality of the brand new Broadway musical “Some Like It Hot,” which opened Sunday night on the Shubert Theatre, is made far more obvious by the indisputable greatness of its source material.
Two hour and half-hour, with one intermission. On the Shubert Theatre, 225 W forty fourth Street.
The 1959 Marilyn Monroe film is among the finest comedies of all time. And, so, as only Broadway knows how one can do, it has churned out a mostly charmless song-and-dance version of a beloved title.
Nonetheless, even in the event you go in totally cold — “Who’s Jack Lemmon?” God forbid — the show still disappoints as a stand-alone piece of theater.
The repetitive songs by Marc Shaiman and Scott Wittman gnaw on the ears, there aren’t enough big laughs in Matthew Lopez and Amber Ruffin’s book and the revised ending, during which a personality questions their gender identity, feels neither honest nor natural, but as if it’s been exhaustively focus-grouped to avoid Twitter backlash. (And, after the “Tootsie” fracas back in 2018, it probably was.)
“Some Like It Hot” amounts to one more man-in-a-dress musical that’s not as tuneful, moving or hilarious as “La Cage aux Folles.” When musicians Joe (Christian Borle) and Jerry (J. Harrison Ghee) first don frocks and wigs to disguise themselves while on the run, there’s a collective exasperation of “You again?”
The 2 penniless bums wind up in women’s attire after they witness an organized crime hit in Chicago through the Nineteen Thirties. Fearing for his or her lives, they get all dolled up, hop aboard the train to California and join a touring all-female band called Sweet Sue’s Society Syncopators. Joe and Jerry aren’t any more — now they’re Josephine and Daphne. And their ultimate goal is to cross the border to Mexico to avoid being offed.
As Josephine, Borle slaps on some glasses and uses a Midwestern brogue that also conjures Mira Sorvino in “Romy and Michele’s High School Reunion.” A running gag that Josephine looks old — offending Joe — is funny. However the smirky performance is simply too tongue-in-cheek to be believable.
Ghee, filled with charisma, fares higher as Daphne. The actor has a more emotional storyline than an uproarious one and their big number “You Could’ve Knocked Me Over With a Feather” is expressive and exciting, even when it sounds rather a lot like “Big, Blonde and Beautiful” from Shaiman and Wittman’s “Hairspray.”
On board the train, the duo meet Sugar Cane (Adrianna Hicks), the Syncopators’ singer, and womanizing Joe struggles to tamp down his libido while in drag. Playing Sugar, Hicks has a robust voice, but Monroe’s je ne sais quois is missed. A lot of the character, we realize, was Monroe’s iconic personality — and without it there’s not much left except the script not knowing what to do with Sugar’s drinking problem.
In the course of the first act, especially, Shaiman and Wittman’s derivative jazz rating pummels you with generic-ness and volume. Every song appears like a shouted version of “Honey Bun” from “South Pacific.” Tune titles like “Vamp!” and “Zee Bap” scream in our faces like unhinged lunatics on Eighth Avenue, and the duo behind “Hairspray” has seemingly lost the power to seek out jokes and develop characters with their music.
They end the primary half with their song “Let’s Be Bad” from TV’s “Smash,” which, lest we forget, was a humongous flop for NBC.
In Act 2, the band arrives at a grand hotel in California. And, come to consider it, “Some Like It Hot” would profit from a director-choreographer like Tommy Tune of “Grand Hotel,” who knows how one can creatively take advantage of a bar or a bellhop. Director Casey Nicholaw doesn’t and, due to this fact, packs in unmotivated tap dancing anywhere he can. At first the faucet is dazzling, however the shimmer fades to monotony. Scott Pask’s metallic period set is Art Meh-co.
The West Coast antics are supposed to be farcical. Daphne results in a flirtation with the rich Osgood (Kevin Del Aguila) and Jerry adopts a 3rd persona as a German film producer to woo Sugar. Nicholaw tacks on an extended madcap “Benny Hill” chase sequence near the tip with gangsters, cops and the band that’s logistically impressive but hardly hysterical. Act 2, for all its plot complications, is eerily calm.
The funniest people within the show, actually, are NaTashha Yvette Williams as Sweet Sue and Angie Schworer because the Society Syncopators’ manager of sorts. Kudos to them, but their prodigious skill and knack for a punchline underlines the lead actors’ lacking material.
I’ve heard “Some Like It Hot” described rather a lot as an “old-fashioned musical comedy.” And, yes, it sure feels old. However the shows that those folks are referencing, and that this musical aspires to be — “Guys and Dolls,” “The Music Man,” “Anything Goes” — sparked with innovation of their time (and, ya know, had strong scores and books).
Unlike “Some,” they were hot.
Gentlemen prefer … the movie.
The wobbly quality of the brand new Broadway musical “Some Like It Hot,” which opened Sunday night on the Shubert Theatre, is made far more obvious by the indisputable greatness of its source material.
Two hour and half-hour, with one intermission. On the Shubert Theatre, 225 W forty fourth Street.
The 1959 Marilyn Monroe film is among the finest comedies of all time. And, so, as only Broadway knows how one can do, it has churned out a mostly charmless song-and-dance version of a beloved title.
Nonetheless, even in the event you go in totally cold — “Who’s Jack Lemmon?” God forbid — the show still disappoints as a stand-alone piece of theater.
The repetitive songs by Marc Shaiman and Scott Wittman gnaw on the ears, there aren’t enough big laughs in Matthew Lopez and Amber Ruffin’s book and the revised ending, during which a personality questions their gender identity, feels neither honest nor natural, but as if it’s been exhaustively focus-grouped to avoid Twitter backlash. (And, after the “Tootsie” fracas back in 2018, it probably was.)
“Some Like It Hot” amounts to one more man-in-a-dress musical that’s not as tuneful, moving or hilarious as “La Cage aux Folles.” When musicians Joe (Christian Borle) and Jerry (J. Harrison Ghee) first don frocks and wigs to disguise themselves while on the run, there’s a collective exasperation of “You again?”
The 2 penniless bums wind up in women’s attire after they witness an organized crime hit in Chicago through the Nineteen Thirties. Fearing for his or her lives, they get all dolled up, hop aboard the train to California and join a touring all-female band called Sweet Sue’s Society Syncopators. Joe and Jerry aren’t any more — now they’re Josephine and Daphne. And their ultimate goal is to cross the border to Mexico to avoid being offed.
As Josephine, Borle slaps on some glasses and uses a Midwestern brogue that also conjures Mira Sorvino in “Romy and Michele’s High School Reunion.” A running gag that Josephine looks old — offending Joe — is funny. However the smirky performance is simply too tongue-in-cheek to be believable.
Ghee, filled with charisma, fares higher as Daphne. The actor has a more emotional storyline than an uproarious one and their big number “You Could’ve Knocked Me Over With a Feather” is expressive and exciting, even when it sounds rather a lot like “Big, Blonde and Beautiful” from Shaiman and Wittman’s “Hairspray.”
On board the train, the duo meet Sugar Cane (Adrianna Hicks), the Syncopators’ singer, and womanizing Joe struggles to tamp down his libido while in drag. Playing Sugar, Hicks has a robust voice, but Monroe’s je ne sais quois is missed. A lot of the character, we realize, was Monroe’s iconic personality — and without it there’s not much left except the script not knowing what to do with Sugar’s drinking problem.
In the course of the first act, especially, Shaiman and Wittman’s derivative jazz rating pummels you with generic-ness and volume. Every song appears like a shouted version of “Honey Bun” from “South Pacific.” Tune titles like “Vamp!” and “Zee Bap” scream in our faces like unhinged lunatics on Eighth Avenue, and the duo behind “Hairspray” has seemingly lost the power to seek out jokes and develop characters with their music.
They end the primary half with their song “Let’s Be Bad” from TV’s “Smash,” which, lest we forget, was a humongous flop for NBC.
In Act 2, the band arrives at a grand hotel in California. And, come to consider it, “Some Like It Hot” would profit from a director-choreographer like Tommy Tune of “Grand Hotel,” who knows how one can creatively take advantage of a bar or a bellhop. Director Casey Nicholaw doesn’t and, due to this fact, packs in unmotivated tap dancing anywhere he can. At first the faucet is dazzling, however the shimmer fades to monotony. Scott Pask’s metallic period set is Art Meh-co.
The West Coast antics are supposed to be farcical. Daphne results in a flirtation with the rich Osgood (Kevin Del Aguila) and Jerry adopts a 3rd persona as a German film producer to woo Sugar. Nicholaw tacks on an extended madcap “Benny Hill” chase sequence near the tip with gangsters, cops and the band that’s logistically impressive but hardly hysterical. Act 2, for all its plot complications, is eerily calm.
The funniest people within the show, actually, are NaTashha Yvette Williams as Sweet Sue and Angie Schworer because the Society Syncopators’ manager of sorts. Kudos to them, but their prodigious skill and knack for a punchline underlines the lead actors’ lacking material.
I’ve heard “Some Like It Hot” described rather a lot as an “old-fashioned musical comedy.” And, yes, it sure feels old. However the shows that those folks are referencing, and that this musical aspires to be — “Guys and Dolls,” “The Music Man,” “Anything Goes” — sparked with innovation of their time (and, ya know, had strong scores and books).
Unlike “Some,” they were hot.
