Songwriters Marc Shaiman and Scott Wittman score offers witty lyrics and tunes that are peppy, repetitive and loud
If ever a gay anthem needed to be retired, it is Jerry Herman’s treacly “I Am What I Am” from “La Cage aux Folles.” Songwriters Marc Shaiman and Scott Wittman achieve that formidable feat with not one but two back-to-back songs in their new musical, “Some Like It Hot,” which opened Sunday at the Shubert Theatre.
Early in Act 2 of this show based on Billy Wilder’s 1959 classic movie, the “real” millionaire Osgood Fielding III attempts to romance Jerry, whom he thinks is really Daphne, because Jerry and his good friend Joe have dressed up as women so they can join an all-girl band to escape the Mob during Prohibition. (If you haven’t seen the movie, forget trying to make sense of this synopsis.) Jerry is doing his friend-in-drag a favor so Joe can use Osgood’s yacht to seduce the band’s lead singer, Sugar. On stage, the inspired Kevin Del Aguila takes over for Joe E. Brown from the movie version to deliver a sweet song of love and liberation titled “Fly, Mariposa, Fly.” The butterfly here is Jerry dressed up as Daphne, and as cunningly played by J. Harrison Ghee (taking over for Jack Lemmon in the movie), this Jerry/Daphne wonders aloud if Osgood has instead mistaken him/her for a caterpillar.
“Fly, Mariposa, Fly” is remarkable for a couple of reasons: It is one of the very few songs in “Some Like It Hot” that is not delivered at a decibel level threatening to blow us out of our seats. (The oppressive sound design is by Brian Ronan.) “Fly, Mariposa, Fly” is also the only genuine love song in a musical based on a movie in which the other couple, Joe and Sugar (played by Tony Curtis and Marilyn Monroe), fall in love despite her meeting him when she thinks he is a woman.
It’s nice to report that the couple treated as a complete joke in the movie finally find real love. The new book by Matthew Lopez and Amber Ruffin follows that revelation with Jerry/Daphne’s declaration of self-discovery “You Coulda Knocked Me Over With a Feather.” (I can report that Ronan’s sound design coulda knocked me over with its rock-concert volume, but I digress.)
“Some Like It Hot” may be the first musical in which the utterly ridiculous secondary couple, Osgood and Daphne, is the one that earns our empathy.
