In recent years, musicals based on hit motion pictures retrofitted with scores have become increasingly popular, as Broadway producers struggle to get audiences interested in live theatre. Many of these are busts as the final product rarely measures up to the original. A surprising exception, however, is Mrs. Doubtfire, the heartwarming story of a recently divorced father who can't bear being away from his children, and dresses up as a buxom Scottish nanny just to be near them. The 1993 film starred Robin Williams, in a career-defining role, along with co-stars Sally Field as his ex-wife, Robert Prosky as an avuncular television executive, and Harvey Fierstein as his gay brother, a makeup and special effects artist. The national tour, under the auspices of American Theatre Guild, played four performances of the musical, ending May 30 at the Fred Kavli Theatre in Thousand Oaks.
The musical remake includes a score written by the brother team of Karey and Wayne Kirkpatrick, who combined forces on the hilarious Something Rotten! The show began previews on Broadway on March 9, 2020 but was forced to shut down three days later due to the onset of the COVID pandemic. It made its official debut on December 5, 2021 but went into a three-month hiatus that spoiled its momentum. Upon returning to the stage in April 2022, it limped through 83 performances before finally closing for good at the end of May.
Mrs. Doubtfire is one in a series of Broadway musicals, all derived from motion pictures, that feature cross-dressing main characters. The others include Tootsie, Some Like It Hot, and Hairspray. Like Tootsie, the main character in Doubtfire, ne-er-do-well voice actor Daniel Hillard, experiences growth as a human being through the process of playing his alter ego. Originally self-centered and unable to succeed in his career, Hillard learns compassion and self-discipline as the Scottish nanny, becoming a loving surrogate for his three children, who get off their cellphones (which didn't exist in the original film), do their homework, and become stellar students in school.
Playing the title role is Craig Allen Smith, who sets his speedometer on "manic" and remains in that mode for nearly the entire show. Smith's performance, although not as brilliantly funny as Robin Williams', makes up for Williams' cleverness with energy. The Kirkpatricks' revised book changes a few of the scenes, but the basic story arc remains the same. To their credit, they also nearly completely overhauled the book so that few of Williams' lines were retained. Somehow it stands by itself as a supremely entertaining production, as Smith created his own alter ego as the willfully schizophrenic Hillard/Doubtfire.
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Alanis Sophia (Lydia Hillard), Melissa Campbell (Miranda Hillard), Chance Challen (Daniel Hillard), and Vivian Atencio (Natalie Hillard[/caption]
Melissa Campbell is outstanding in the Sally Field role of Miranda Hillard, while Brian Kalinowsky is a riot as Frank Hillard, who yells loudly whenever he tells a lie (a funny running gag). The character of old-school television producer Jonathan Lundy, which was so elegantly played by Robert Prosky in the film version has been changed to a less sympathetic, no-nonsense younger female now named Janet Lundy, played by Se'lah Jackson. Kennedy V. Jackson plays the suspicious court-appointed social worker who evaluates Daniel's living conditions.
The Kirkpatricks' score isn't memorable but gets by on its kinetic energy. Songs such as "Easy Peasy," in which Daniel is transformed into Mrs. Doubtfire by his brother and boyfriend, is one of the more impressive sequences in the musical. Even better is the Act I closer, "I'm Rockin' Now," which concerns Daniel clowning around with a tape loop machine on the set of Mr. Jolly's children's program at a local television station where he has gotten work as a janitor.
The physical tropes that became familiar from the film version (Doubtfire's cooking exploits in the Hillard kitchen, the vacuum cleaner dance, and the rapid-fire costume changes in the penultimate restaurant scene, have all been retained and executed with skillful precision and timing. An added scene has Doubtfire joining a gaggle of models in demonstrating Miranda Hillard's line of exercise togs in the uproarious Act II opening dance routine "The Shape of Things to Come." Credit Lorin Latarro for the outstanding original choreography in pulling all the production numbers together with deceptive ease.
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DeVon Wycovia Buchanan (Andre Mayem), Brian Kalinowski (Frank Hillard), Kennedy V.
Jackson (Wanda Sellner), and Craig Allen Smith (Daniel Hillard).[/caption]
The amazingly fluid costume changes are the result of the efforts of Costume Designer Catherine Zuber, makeup designer Craig-Forrest Thomas, and hair and wig designers Victoria Tissman and David Brian Brown, who enabled Smith to change from Daniel to Doubtfire in a matter of seconds, all of which occur on stage in view of the audience.
Despite a handful of character changes and substitution of new scenes, the stage version of Mrs. Doubtfire works because of Craig Allen Smith's hyper physicality and sympathetic portrayal of Hillard. Fortunately, the key speech at the end of the show, when Mrs. Doubtfire reads a letter to her audience from a little girl whose parents have broken up, still brings out handkerchiefs to blot at moist eyes. Yes, it's cloying and overly sentimental, but the honesty of the Hillards' family dynamic comes through, making the musical version of the film classic an appropriate and entertaining variation on the universal theme: families come in all shapes, sizes, and colors.
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