The Off-Broadway revival of “Kinky Boots,” which opens tonight  at Stage 42, comes just 40 months after the end of the show’s run on Broadway, and is so little changed from the original that it’s unlikely to make many people reconsider their view of the musical. That means that fans will probably not be disappointed by this new production. It also means that there’s little reason for those who weren’t fans to give it a second look.

My second look didn’t bowl me over; I still don’t think it’s kinky enough. But I get why people find it so entertaining, and I like the same two things I liked best about the musical when it opened on Broadway in 2013: the performer who portrays Lola the drag queen (then Billy Porter, now Callum Francis), and Cyndi Lauper’s catchy score.  And revisiting “Kinky Boots” nine years later does give me a chance to reflect on an aspect of the show that I didn’t sufficiently appreciate the first time around.

“Kinky Boots,” winner of the 2013 Tony Award for best musical, is an adaptation of the 2005 British film of the same name about a shoemaker facing bankruptcy who partners with a drag queen facing bigotry to make footwear sturdy enough for a man but fabulous enough for a woman.  

It is inspired by a true story, more or less — actually, less. Yes, in the 1990s, English shoe manufacturer Steve Pateman created the Divine Footwear line for drag queen customers in order to save W J Brooks Ltd, the Northampton shoe-manufacturing firm that had been in his family for a century. But, he did not partner with a drag queen to do it. He was responding to a request from a “fetish shoe shop” in Folkstone for women’s shoes in men’s sizes. (“It’s very hard for me because Charlie Price comes across as a bit of an idiot; he is the one bumbling around and Lola comes in and takes over. Actually I was the one who did it all,” Pateman told the Northampton Chronicle upon the publication of his 2018 memoir, “Boss in Boots.”) And in real life the new shoe line didn’t save the company, which a few years later, in 2000, shut down anyway.

So Lola appears to be a wholly invented character, not just a self-invented one. And that’s a good thing for the musical; there couldn’t have been much of a show without her.  The Broadway production showcased Billy Porter, whose phenomenal performance as Simon and Simon’s drag persona Lola won him a Tony Award and turned him into a star, twenty-two long years after the veteran singer and actor had made his Broadway debut. 

 Callum Francis, the Simon and Lola at Stage 42, is also a terrific performer. Francis first played the role in Australia in 2017, when he was just 20 years old, and appeared briefly on Broadway near the end of its run. He is younger than Porter was, a less experienced and less edgy actor.  He is also taller, more muscular, with a lower vocal range. The overall effect is an amiable, glamorous Lola who’s harder to see as vulnerable, and a production as a result that’s subtly less poignant.

But genuine poignance never struck me as the principal selling point of the show, which felt overly polished, safe and familiar when I saw the Broadway production, with a book by Harvey Fierstein full of manufactured conflicts too readily resolved. Nine years later, again with Jerry Mitchell as both director and choreographer, all the high energy and good cheer feel even more synthetic to me, a Broadway brand entertainment delivering old-fashioned song and dance, uplift and spectacle,  with few complex and no kinky characters and nearly everybody winding up cuddly.

There are a few tweaks. The most noticeable change is the elimination of two child actors portraying the young Lola/Simon and the young Charlie Price, the shoemaker’s son who grows up to inherit his father’s failing business (a welcome change that takes the sentimentality down a notch.)  The cast is otherwise just as big as on Broadway, and many in the new cast perform just as well (in roles that generally require more vocal power and dexterity than acting chops.) Two are even holdovers: Marcus Neville is reprising his role as George, the formal factory manager, and Kevin Smith Kirkwood remains formidable as one of Lola’s drag Angels. If I had to pick a standout besides Callum Francis, it would be Sean Steele as the loutish unenlightened factory worker Don, who eventually sees the light.  

The design team is mostly the same, but David Rockwell’s sets look less elaborate, adjusted for a theater a third the size of Broadway’s Al Hirschfeld (and likely for the production’s smaller budget.)

There is also an alteration in the script that acknowledges changing times. When once, Lola would introduce the drag show within the show as “Ladies, gentlemen and those who have yet to make up their minds,” the line now is: “Ladies, gentlemen, theys, them and those who have yet to make up their minds!”

I would love to be able to say that the rise in awareness of trans and non-binary people that that line represents makes “Kinky Boots” feel dated, but the truth is probably closer to the opposite. 

I was surprised at the hostile reaction to “Kinky Boots” because of the crossdressing when the cast performed at the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade the year that it opened on Broadway. In the years since, the hostility towards gender nonconformity has only gotten worse, with right-wing politicians threatening to codify discrimination. I realize I took for granted the message of tolerance and inclusion that is carefully built into the show, leavened with humor to make it easier to hear. At one point, Lola says: 

“You’ve all heard of the Twelve Step program, have you not? Well, whatever you can do in twelve, we can do in six. And it goes like this…”

And then the cast delivers the six steps:

Pursue the truth

Learn something new

Accept yourself and you’ll accept others too

Let love shine

Let pride be your guide

You change the world when you change your mind.

The simple wisdom of these words didn’t reach me until I heard them repeated by a pastor as part of a church sermon – a sermon specifically about Kinky Boots, delivered by Mike Piazza, who was then the senior pastor of Virginia-Highland Church in Atlanta (and now presides over the Broadway United Church of Christ in New York.)

It’s worth watching the video of the sermon, below. What’s oddest about my reaction to it is that what I found most moving is not the way the pastor applies the show to a specific passage in the Bible or even the moral messages for everyday living he extracts from it, but the way he recounts the plot — clearly, with humor and compassion and just the right details. Listening to the way he tells the story of the show made me like “Kinky Boots” more than the revival did.

Kinky Boots
Stage 42
Running time: 2 hours and 30 minutes including one intermission.
Tickets: $67.50 – $157.50. Rush: $40. Student rush: $29
Music and lyrics by Cyndi Lauper, book by Harvey Fierstein.
Directed and choreographed by Jerry Mitchell, 
Scenic design by David Rockwell, costume design by Gregg Barnes, lighting design by Kenneth Posner, sound design by Gareth Owen, hair design by Josh Marquette, make-up design by Darion Matthews, music direction by Will Van Dyke, and music supervision, arrangements, and orchestrations by Stephen Oremus.
Cast: Callum Francis as Simon/Lola, Christian Douglas as “Charlie Price,” Danielle Hope as “Lauren,” Brianna Stoute  as “Nicola,” Sean Steele  as “Don,” and Marcus Neville, reprising his role of “George, Devin Bowles, Bella Coppola, Nick Drake, Ian Gallagher Fitzgerald, Ryan Halsaver, Matthew Michael Janisse, Lindsay Joan, Kevin Smith Kirkwood, Marty Lauter, Tommy Martinez, Ryah Nixon, Lucas Pastrana, Liz Pearce, Ricky Schroeder, David J. Socolar, Ebrin R. Stanley, Tarion Strong, Ernest T. Williams, and Maria Wirries.

Double-click photos to see enlarged.