“I Am a Man in Love! Toss Me My Bra”
This is for the couple sitting next to me at the Marquis
Theatre to see Tootsie, the Broadway musical
version of the 1982 Hollywood comedy in which Dustin Hoffman played Michael
Dorsey, a struggling actor cast in a major role only when he convinces everyone
he’s a woman.
First, let me note that I saw Tootsie on the day it received 11 Tony nominations, in addition to
the passel it previously received from other award-granters, like the Drama
Desk. There was even an ironic moment when the “actress” Dorothy Michaels (the female
persona adopted by Michael Dorsey) is mentioned as a potential Tony nominee.
This gave the happy audience an opportunity to burst into cheers for the just-that-day
nominated Santino Fontana, the actor playing the part. All he could do was stand
there, smiling and soaking it all in, as his fellow performers beamed.
Although he was nominated but didn’t receive an Academy
Award, Dustin Hoffman’s perfectly observed Michael/Dorothy continues to be iconic
among those in which a cis-gender male passes himself off as a woman. In sheer
acting terms, it far surpasses Fontana’s, which the show deprives of subtlety
because of its emphasis on broad strokes closer to farce than relatively believable
comedy. 
Fontana (Cinderella) brings his considerable singing and
dancing skills to the role—which Hoffman could never emulate. He's loaded with stage
appeal and hits all his marks with technical perfection. However, with diction
more like a classical actor’s than an everyman’s, and a too-apparent desire to
please, he somehow lacks the earthy charisma that might have made his
performance as memorable as Hoffman’s. This, though, is more apparent when he’s
playing Michael than when he’s dressed as Dorothy, as we can easily accept her as
a construct, while Michael is more “real.”
Robert Horn’s script resembles that of the movie only in its
very broadest outlines, such as the failure of the just-turned-40 Michael’s
career being attributable to how hard he is to work with. And, of course, there's his decision to impersonate
a woman, which means snaring a role his zany friend, Sandy (Sarah Stiles, Hand to God, terrific in the Terri Garr
part), is also going for.
The story is updated to present-day New York, where Michael
rooms with his grungy, playwright buddy, Jeff (Andy Grotelueschen, Cyrano de Bergerac), the Bill Murray role.
Most of it is new, or just vaguely similar to the original.
One of the biggest changes is the role that makes Michael a star. In the movie it’s a TV soap opera called “Southwest General,” but in the show it’s a ridiculously farfetched Broadway musical conceived as a sequel to Romeo and Juliet and called Juliet’s Curse. (Gary: A Sequel to Titus Andronicus, anyone?) 
One of the biggest changes is the role that makes Michael a star. In the movie it’s a TV soap opera called “Southwest General,” but in the show it’s a ridiculously farfetched Broadway musical conceived as a sequel to Romeo and Juliet and called Juliet’s Curse. (Gary: A Sequel to Titus Andronicus, anyone?)
Cast as the nurse, he introduces ideas that make the show
more about the nurse than Juliet. However, the complications of his budding
romance with Julie (Lilli Cooper, SpongeBob
Square Pants), the actress playing Juliet, make him confess his big lie during
the opening night performance.
Cooper, by the way, is lovely and sings well but there’s nothing in her role to suggest why its movie avatar, Jessica Lange, won an Oscar (the film’s only one) for it. 
Cooper, by the way, is lovely and sings well but there’s nothing in her role to suggest why its movie avatar, Jessica Lange, won an Oscar (the film’s only one) for it.
It’s hard, though, not to wonder why Dorothy gets away with her
script- and production-altering shenanigans, while Michael was despised when he
pulled similar stunts. And the movie’s handling of the confession works much
better because it’s acceptable within the soap opera pretext, where such
shocking revelations are de rigueur.
For whatever reason, the Broadway script completely skips
the sequence of steps involved in Michael’s transition. We see the idea strike
him and then—presto!—he appears all dolled up in a wig, dress, and heels. No
idea is given of where he got these femme fixings or of what it took to suddenly
become so believably female—including a falsetto voice—that everyone buys into
him on sight.
Those people include the egregiously self-loving, womanizing
director, Ron Carlisle (Reg Rogers, resembling Robert Downey, Jr.’s, Tony Stark more
than Dabney Coleman’s Ron). There’s also the show’s rich producer, Rita Marshall
(the we-need-more-of-her Julie Halston, stealing her every scene), and the doofus,
mispronouncing, buff, shirt-baring, reality-show-star-turned-talentless-Broadway
lead, Max Van Horn (John Behlman, landing laugh after laugh). 
There’s nothing especially radical in Tootsie’s look, which has a David Rockwell set—within a false proscenium
with a formal drop curtain—of mostly locale-defining units. These slide on and
off before a skeletal outline of the Manhattan skyline, with the occasional use
of an elevator trap or flying. 
William Ivey Long’s colorful, often glitzy costumes are
mainly modern dress but also introduce strong infusions of Renaissance garb for
Juliet’s Curse before it’s decided to
switch the period to Fellini-style 50’s Rome. Dorothy even appears in a
low-necked version of the red-sequined gown so familiar from the movie version’s
ads. And Donald Holder’s vibrant lighting is every bit as bouncy as the costumes
on which it shines. 
Horn’s book is filled with crowd-pleasing zingers, many of
them right on target. There are a number of moments, perhaps too many, where the
laughs depend on slow takes—a long, deadpan reaction to some outrageous bit,
followed by an unexpected quip, an art at which Grotelueschen is a master.
There’s even a bit where an agent's (Michael McGrath) office door gets a laugh when it does its own
version of a double—or was that a triple—take? 
Much of the humor is inside theatre stuff that some may miss,
and, even within the show’s satirical world, it’s surprising that Dorothy lands
her part in a Broadway musical without any mention of her Equity membership. In
fact, even the signed 8X10 headshot given to theatregoers as they exit, replete
with her supposed resume on the back, lists no union membership, one
of the first things that should be there. 
The very notion of a work in which a man takes a role from a
woman for his own self-aggrandizement is notably fraught in this #MeToo moment.
Tootsie therefore works overtime to ensure we know that it knows the political ramifications.
Some may think the show wants it both ways: a man succeeds because he’s better
at playing a woman than a woman, but women deserve all the respect we can give them. 
In one of the more serious moments, the newly woke Michael
even gets to say how much wiser Dorothy was than he: “I always just grabbed
what I wanted and assume I deserved it. But it was different for Dorothy. She’d
voice her opinion, then be called ‘hysterical.’ She had to be assertive, but
not bitchy, compassionate, but not ‘emotional,’ feminine, but never misleading,
while somehow handling insecure jerks . . . and arrogant schmucks like me. . . .” 
Regardless, as per the cross-dressing formula, you get
plenty of the expected gender confusion hilarity (shades of As You Like It, Charley’s Aunt, et al.),
from Lilli’s lesbian-like falling for Dorothy, to Michael’s conflict about
responding without blowing his cover, to Max’s passion for Dorothy inspiring
him to have his torso tattooed with her face, and so on. 
David Yazbek’s (The
Band’s Visit) mostly entertaining
music ranges from unmemorable to stuff I’d like to hear again. I liked Julie’s
R&B “Gone, Gone, Gone,” a cabaret number stuck in without any plot-advancing
goal, and the haunting “Who Are You,” which I can still vaguely recall. Most of
the songs are coupled with some truly clever lyrics, like those demonstrating Yazbek’s
verbal dexterity at rapid-fire patter, one example being Sandy’s “What’s Gonna
Happen,” sung as she nervously contemplates an audition.
While director Scott Ellis (Kiss Me, Kate) keeps things spinning at a ripping pace, nothing of particular
note memorializes his staging. Several solo songs, oddly, are directed so the performer,
rather than being integrated into the situation, delivers them facing forward,
almost as if having stepped out of the show.
Denis Jones’s (Holiday Inn) spoof-slanted choreography has lots of kick, and there’s an inventive moment in one number when the dancers’ Renaissance costumes are pulled off to reveal stylish La Dolce Vita ones. Despite its Bob Fosse references, though, Tootsie is no Cabaret, nor is it intended to be.
Denis Jones’s (Holiday Inn) spoof-slanted choreography has lots of kick, and there’s an inventive moment in one number when the dancers’ Renaissance costumes are pulled off to reveal stylish La Dolce Vita ones. Despite its Bob Fosse references, though, Tootsie is no Cabaret, nor is it intended to be.
I hope this answers my theatre neighbors’ question as to
whether I liked the show. Like a tootsie roll, it may be delicious but it also sometimes
gets stuck in your teeth.
Marquis
Theatre
1535
Broadway, NYC
Open
run
OTHER
VIEWPOINTS:
