Popstar Cyndi Lauper won a Tony for the score to this 2013 Broadway musical—the first woman to win solo in that category; the show also took home five other awards, including those for Best Musical and Best Actor in a Musical, and it ran for six years.
Adapted by Harvey Fierstein from Julian Jarrold’s 2005 film, it centers on the relationship between Charlie Price, the owner of a financially struggling English shoe factory, and Lola, a flamboyant drag queen who saves the business by designing a line of flashy high-heeled boots for drag performers that becomes a niche-market sensation after their debut at the fashion show in Milan that serves as a big, boisterous finale.
The basic story is embellished with subplots that expand on their growing friendship, like the fact that both have to confront daddy issues from their childhood (leading to an affecting duet), and Charlie’s realization that his real soulmate is not Nola, who pressures him to sell the business, but Lauren, the factory worker who believes in him. The show’s basic message about learning to accept people for who they are is most pointedly conveyed, though, in a thread involving Don, the homophobic foreman who ridicules Lola, whom he even challenges to a boxing match; by the end he has totally changed his attitude, even donning a pair of the boots during the second-act close.
Like the movie, the musical is an unabashed plea for tolerance, and Fierstein’s treatment is no less prone to preachiness than his adaptation of La Cage aux Folles was; Lauper’s lyrics have that tendency as well. But her music, which blends pop with Broadway razzmatazz, hits all the right marks and provides smashing solo numbers for all the principals. The score also includes numerous opportunities for exhilarating ensembles, which the company, including Lola’s back-up drag queen dancers, the Angels, carries off rousingly in director Jerry Mitchell’s exuberant choreography.
This disc documents not the Broadway production, but the London one that opened two years later and ran at the Adelphi Theatre for more than three years, with a cleverly mobile set by David Rockwell and glitzy costumes by Gregg Barnes modeled on the New York staging.
The original West End stars, Killian Donnelly (Charlie) and Matt Henry (Lola) returned for the filming, and the entire cast—their names given in captions as they return for the curtain call—is excellent. With fine work by film director Brett Sullivan that occasionally cuts to the reactions of an appreciative live audience, this provides a souvenir of a modern musical that might not be a classic but is a guaranteed crowd-pleaser, especially welcome because a film version is unlikely. No extras, but recommended, especially for collections specializing in Broadway theatre and Cyndi Lauper fans.