Al Hirschfeld theatre, New York
Share 6
inShare1
Email 
Alexis Soloski
guardian.co.uk, Friday 5 April 2013 10.57 BST
Jump to comments (2)
High-heeled fun … Stark Sands (left), Annaleigh Ashford and Billy Porter in Kinky Boots. Photograph: Matthew Murphy/AP
Most New Yorkers would hesitate to don the dazzling footwear displayed in the new Broadway musical Kinky Boots. When you live in a city of potholes, sloping sidewalks, and perilous subway stairs, the six-inch stiletto is not your friend. Yet audiences have heartily embraced this middling production, which features pop icon Cyndi Lauper as composer and lyricist. Based on a 2005 indie film (itself derived from a true story of small-business gumption, Kinky Boots tells how a failing firm reinvents itself as a manufacturer of fetishwear for the cross-dressed gent.
As the show begins, Charlie Price (the plucky Stark Sands) has ditched his backwater roots for London lights, but his father's death lures him back to struggling the Price & Son factory, rendered, in David Rockwell's set design as a slightly grimy Santa's workshop. Cancelled orders and cheaper imports nearly convince Charlie to close when an encounter with drag queen Lola (the hard-charging Billy Porter) changes his fiscal fate. "There must be a niche market for properly built-to-last women's boots for women who are men," Charlie declares. Lola signs on as designer and soon songs are sung, lessons learned, and thigh-high patent leather donned.
For a musical with such racy themes, it would be difficult to picture a more conservative, family-friendly show. The book is by Harvey Fierstein and it is about as provocative and challenging as a soft toy. Yes, drag queens abound on stage, but as Lola says: "Drag queens are mainstream. Just this morning I was offered a gig singing at a nursing home. A nursing home, Charlie. In Clacton." Despite a few bustiers and songs entitled Sex Is in the Heel and What a Woman Wants, this is an oddly chaste show. The only clinch occurs in the last moment and is strictly gender conforming. The script doesn't even permit Lola to evince an attraction to anyone.
We can credit costume designer Gregg Barnes with the boots – they really are luscious. But similar originality evades most of the songs, which, though tuneful enough, fade from the mind as soon as the last note has sounded. A few exceptions are The History of Wrong Guys, a clever girl/dumb choices number milked gleefully by Annaleigh Ashford, and I'm Not My Father's Son, a duet for Sands and Porter. Most of the others, even those that promise well, ultimately come across as generic, accomplishing little in terms of revealing character or driving plot. Certainly there's nothing to rival the poignancy of Time After Time, or even the daffy joy of She Bop. Still, Broadway audiences just wanna have fun, and if it means giving a standing O to a uneven book and score, they'll do it.
