NSMT’s ‘Kinky Boots’: Warm, funny, and irresistible

Julian Malone (Lola) and Luke Hamilton (Charlie) with the cast of KINKY BOOTS at North Shore Music Theatre thru November 6, 2022. Photo © Paul Lyden

BOSTON – “Kinky Boots” is an irresistible, upbeat,  feel-good  musical, with a warm, heart-felt, funny book by Harvey Fierstein and Cyndi Lauper’s bouncy rock-based score, which complement each other beautifully.

The North Shore Music Theatre’s production of “Kinky Boots” through Nov. 6 embraces all the best parts of the musical, and amplifies them, with sterling choreography and direction by Kevin P. Hill.  

“Kinky Boots” won six Tony Awards in 2013 and ran for six years on Broadway, and made a huge star of Billy Porter.

As with another successful musical, “Billy Elliot,” “Kinky Boosts gets involved with working-class people in England, in this case Northampton, where the shoemaking firm of Price & Son is important source of jobs for the locals.

Price & Son has been struggling with cheaper imports and changing tastes, but Mr. Price (James Andrew Walsh) is hopeful son Charlie (Luke Hamilton) will take over the reins when it’s time and keep the longtime plant workers gainfully employed.

When the plant is running full tilt, it can be “The Most Beautiful Thing in the World,” as one of Lauper’s Tony-winning songs is titled, and a proud father tells his son: Someday all this will be yours. There’s just one problem: Charlie Price doesn’t want any part of it, envisioning a life in the bright lights of London with his girlfriend Nicola (Etta Grover).

But his father’s death forces Charlie back home, and he is shocked when he finds out  stock has been piling up and there are no buyers in sight, and only a miracle can keep the plant open.

When he comes to the aid of what he thinks is a woman being assaulted by several men, he finds it isn’t actually a woman, but a drag queen named Lola (Julian Malone).

Part of his on-stage dress code are sexy hip-high boots, worn by him and his fellow dancers, who are looking for something better and more spectacular.

Charlie sees a niche he believes his firm can exploit; the story is based on an actual British shoe-making firm in the 1990s that started making boots for women that were also worn by men.

In this case, Charlie hires Lola as a designer for the new product, but the reaction to his arrival on the scene at the factory is mixed when he arrives in full drag regalia. Even when Lola tries to fit in with “business class” attire, things are strained.

The difficult relationships they had with their fathers growing up bonds Charlie and Lola (nee Simon) and makes for a touching “Not My Father’s Son.”

Lola is not your average drag queen. He is a trained boxer and the son of a boxer, who later disowned him. He travels with a group of six dancing “Angels,” all men who are passing – some spectacularly so — as women. They get ample chances to strut their stuff in Hill’s s production numbers.

“I make a roomful of people feel normal by comparison.” Lola says at one point.

There are several fine supporting turns. James Fairchild is beefy factory worker Don, a bit of a Neanderthal who is the most resistant to accepting Lola as part of the crew. But after a boxing match in which Lola lets Don escape with his dignity intact, Lola gets his respect.

Charlie’s relationship with Nicola frays as he becomes more involved with his assistant Lauren (Audrey Belle Adams), who has her moment in the sun with “The History of Wrong Guys.” Medford native Kevin B. McGlynn is George, a longtime firm employee whom Charlie finally wins over.

“Kinky Boots” was only a modest success as a 2005 film but benefits here from the stage adaptation by Fierstein, who has written some of the better books of musicals in recent years (“Hairspray,” etc.). Fierstein’s book uses humor in extolling the virtues of being what you want to be, and finding the true road to acceptance and happiness. He also espouses tolerance and an acceptance of differences.

He also wrote the book for 1983’s “La Cage aux Folles,” which approached the subject of drag performers in a completely different way at a completely different time.

Lauper’s score has all the rock sensibilities you’d expect, and is strong even when things get softer as during Lola’s second-act showstopper, “Hold Me in Your Heart.”

Lauper also rocks out in the rousing “Raise You Up/Just Be” finale that threatens to raise the roof off the theater.

The production values are also first-class with Kyle Dixon’s scenic design, vibrant rock-style lighting by Jose Santiago, sound by Adams Bates, and costume coordination and additional costume design by Kelly Baker, based on Gregg Barnes’ original costume design.

Dan Rodriguez, who has done great work for many area theaters in recent years, leads a strong orchestra performing Lauper’s score.

“Kinky Boots” is a crowd-pleaser of the first order, and after a recent Sunday afternoon performance it had theater-goers floating on air on the way to the parking lot.

The North Shore Music Theatre production of “Kinky Boots.” Book by Harvey Fierstein, music and lyrics by Cyndi Lauper. Directed and choreographed by Kevin P. Hill. Original Broadway production directed and choreographed by Jerry Mitchell. Based on the Miramax motion picture written by Geoff Geane and Tim Firth. At the North Shore Music Theatre through Nov. 6. Nsmt.org.