Penny Tannenbaum

Ultimately, Lopez and Ruffin succeed in elevating the resolution between Joe and Jerry, diversifying the love match between Joe and Sugar, and crafting a more evolved relationship between Jerry and Osgood. Shaiman had the more formidable task in concocting his score, which is probably why his Some Like It Hot often feels so effortful onstage. They’re all striving so hard to create what the film so naturally was in the first place: a road musical with cherrypicked hits for Marilyn Monroe to croon, including “Runnin’ Wild,” “I Wanna Be Loved by You,” and “I’m Thru With Love.”

As much as we both love Dylan – my wife Sue and I held hands when the mighty “Hurricane” was sung – Girl from the North Country never fully connected with us. The boxer and escaped convict in McPherson’s script is Joe Scott, we’re in 1934 Duluth (three years before Rubin “Hurricane” Carter was born), and when Warren Nolan Jr.* plunges into the song, he must segue into “All Along the Watchtower” long before the tale of the framed boxer reaches its epic, cumulative power and intensity.

While McCrimmon belts every tune her larynx touches out of the park – and knows enough from Jewish to give her Fanny a slightly yiddishe ta’am – she doesn’t arrive with the name recognition of her Broadway counterparts. So the tour not only comes to us equipped with McCrimmon’s considerable verve and talent, we’re also favored with the presence of Melissa Manchester as Fanny’s mom, Rose Brice, a role that was juicy enough for Kay Medford to earn Tony Award and Oscar nominations back in the ‘60s.

At the center of all this wonder is Montego Glover's electrifying performance as the Witch. All too often, the defanged and chastened Witch is portrayed as reformed and fundamentally changed after intermission. That impression, a holdover from previous encounters with Sondheim's Witch, didn't last long here. Glover is still playing the blame game viciously, maliciously, and fiercely after regaining her youth, pointing her crooked finger at Jack as a surviving She-Giant from above wreaks rampaging vengeance upon the whole kingdom.