KINKY BOOTS @ Al Hirschfeld Theatre, 4/7/2013

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Kinky BootsYou put the talents of Cyndi Lauper and Harvey Fierstein into a Broadway musical and I pretty much want to be there! Add to the fact that their collaboration is based on a 2005 English movie I adored, Kinky Boots, and I was pumped to see Kinky Boots.

Let me first expound on the good stuff… Gregg Barnes costume design. He has a big job outfitting shoe factory workers in everyday clothes and then of course there are those amazing ‘kinky’ boots (knee-high high heel at that) but I was especially taken how Billy Porter’s Lola was dressed, in drag and not, and her ‘Angels’-leggy drop dead male dancers to a man-sporting various bikinis, long flowing dresses, all manner of the most outrageous costumes.

Lighting Design is equally scrumptious, all by Kenneth Posner. He has a great many scenes to illuminate and quite a view changes that require a goodly amount of expertise in his area. 

Third, the aforementioned Lola’s Angels: Paul Cannan, Kevin Smith Kirkwood, Kyle Taylor Parker, Kyle Post, Charlie Sutton, Joey Taranto. Great beautiful dancing drag queens all.

Annaleigh Ashford’s Lauren and her fantastically comic turn on one of the (and only really) good songs, “The History of Wrong Guys.”

What doesn’t work here are a bunch of things I generally think are what I feel don’t work in shows/musicals in general but with our watered down sensibilities we are not only coming to expect but now take as positives.

1.)  The celebration of gay culture. True, Kinky Boots has a drag queen as its major central character, it is a show about acceptance, but why play to the obvious with the hetero-bating moments and all that banal transpower posing?

2.)  Lack of a good tune. Sorry to say this seeing as this is the great “She Bop” girl behind the songs, but like our dear swinging man of the spider, mere exposition and a competent bunch of musicians playing a meandering melody does not equate to a Broadway score.

3.) The obligatory Standing ‘O’. Recall a time when a standing ovation at a show was a rare occurrence, now it seems to be de rigueur. Is it simply we have to get on our feet having just spent this much money on a ticket?

4.)  Need we have to make every movie into a Broadway musical?

Take my positives, mix it with my negatives (or don’t take anything I’ve said here at all) and decide if it is worth your 2 and half hours to get kinky down at the Al Hirschfeld Theatre with Kinky Boots.

Kinky Boots is playing at the Al Hirschfeld Theatre. For more info, please visit http://kinkybootsthemusical.com/.

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