'Some Like it Hot,' and I’m among them
Tap-happy choreography and a catchy, modern score give the musical 21st-century heart and humor
This review by longtime Charlotte arts critic Lawrence Toppman was published by The Charlotte Ledger on November 27, 2024. You can find out more about The Charlotte Ledger’s commitment to smart local news and information and sign up for our newsletter for free here. And check out this link for Toppman’s archive of reviews in the Ledger.
Review: The Broadway Lights musical version of the 1959 film is a delightful and modern reinterpretation with dynamic performances
“Some Like It Hot” plays at Belk Theater through Sunday, Dec. 1. (Photo courtesy of Blumenthal Arts)
By Lawrence Toppman
After I enjoyed “Some Like It Hot” last year on Broadway, I immediately e-mailed a friend who also admires the film on which it’s based. “Not interested,” he wrote back. “Why would I want to see a musical that changes anything about the most perfect movie comedy ever?”
If you share that view, avoid the tour that reached Belk Theater this week in Blumenthal Arts’ Broadway Lights season. If you have a more open mind and a more open heart, I think you’ll respond to a version that leaves the setting in the early 1930s but reflects the sentiments of our own time.
Billy Wilder’s 1959 film was adapted as a musical once before, the seldom-revived “Sugar” of 1972. (Producer David Merrick couldn’t get the rights to the title.) That show managed 505 performances mostly on the strength of Robert Morse’s performance as Jerry, one of two musicians who escape Chicago gangsters by wearing drag in an all-girl band. But a weak Jule Styne-Bob Merrill score and the feeling that the material had become dated held it back.
The new, unrelated “Some Like It Hot” ran fewer performances in 2022-23 (441) but has a catchier score by Marc Shaiman and Scott Wittman. More crucially, the book by Matthew López and Amber Ruffin significantly and wittily changes half of the story.
Philandering sax player Joe, who masquerades as “Josephine,” still falls for Sugar, the unlucky-in-love chanteuse who fronts the female band. Here, he woos her in the form of a Hollywood screenwriter who might make her acting fantasies a reality. (Leandra Ellis-Gaston does an especially good job of making Sugar sexy, innocent and dreamy at once.) (Edited 11/27/24 to correct Ellis-Gaston role.)
But bass player Jerry, who poses as “Daphne” and gets chased by eccentric millionaire Osgood, realizes that drag liberates him to explore buried facets of his personality. He is Daphne — and maybe also Jerry or someone else entirely who’s just now putting all the pieces together. His re-invention, not to mention the show’s, make this a story for the 21st century.
This doesn’t seem preachy, because the focus doesn’t shift too much; Jerry/Daphne gets better songs than Joe, but they share our attention almost evenly. And Casey Nicholaw’s tap-happy choreography, which extends even to cops and murderers, makes the musical more light-hearted than the film and justly won one of its four Tonys. (“Kimberly Akimbo,” which beat it for musical, book and score, will reach Knight Theater in April.)
Three things differentiate the production for me from the Broadway version. First, the tempo has been picked up slightly for audiences on the road. Second, the sound mix is muddier: I already knew a lot of the lyrics but could not make them out when voices didn’t come through clearly. That’s awkward, as the songs depend as much on clever words as appealing melodies.
Third, the Broadway star casting of Tony nominee Christian Borle as Joe and Tony-winner J. Harrison Ghee as Jerry/Daphne made a strong impression. Yet in some ways, seeing the lesser-known Matt Loehr and Tavis Kordell brought advantages.
Loehr seemed less sure of himself, more of a small-time hustler kicked around by life, and his relaxed, loose-limbed dancing reminded me of Gene Nelson’s in old movie musicals. You needed to think (and I did) that he might not hold onto Sugar, if he revealed his unglamorous identity.
The non-binary Kordell imbued Daphne with a more naïve joy than Ghee, as if he couldn’t believe his own transformation. His family drove 110 miles from Raeford to be there opening night; I met his mother near the cast board in the lobby, where she and other kin took photos of each other proudly pointing to his name. I wondered what life had been like for him growing up in rural Hoke County, and whether the memories of that experience gave special zest and power to Daphne’s self-discovery. It’s a star-making role, and he seized it exultantly.
If you’re going
“Some Like It Hot” runs through Sunday, Dec. 1. Show times are 7:30 p.m. Wednesday, 2 and 8 p.m. Friday and Saturday, and 1:30 and 7 p.m. Sunday at Belk Theater, 130 N. Tryon St.
Lawrence Toppman covered the arts for 40 years at The Charlotte Observer before retiring in 2020. Now, he’s back in the critic’s chair for the Charlotte Ledger — look for his reviews about two times each month in the Charlotte Ledger.
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