Some Like It Hot (review)

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Reviewed by:

• Some Like It Hot
• Emily G. Furlich

SOME LIKE IT HOT. Book by Matthew López and Amber Ruffin. Music by Marc Shaiman. Lyrics by Scott Wittman and Marc Shaiman. Directed by Casey Nicholaw. Shubert Theatre, New York. January 19, 2023.

Following Tootsie and Mrs. Doubtfire, Some Like It Hot is the third musical adapted from a man-in-a-dress film comedy to come to Broadway since 2019. Both Tootsie and Doubtfire faced criticism for using transphobic bodily humor and punchlines about drag that reinforced regressive ideas about binarized gender. However, Some Like It Hot seemed more promising to me than Tootsie and Doubtfire because book writers Matthew López (The Whipping Man, The Inheritance) and Amber Ruffin (Late Night with Seth Meyers, The Amber Ruffin Show) used the cross-dressing conceit from the original 1959 film directed by Billy Wilder to send one of the show’s characters on a journey exploring their gender identity. While the musical marks a step forward in representing queer characters in commercial musical theatre, I wasn’t entirely convinced that Some Like It Hot escaped the transphobic baggage associated with the man-in-a-dress trope.

López and Ruffin changed the musical’s setting to 1933, just before Prohibition ended, and refigured some of the characters from the film as Black or Latinx. Joe, played by Christian Borle, and Jerry, played by Black non-binary actor J. Harrison Ghee, escape the gangsters tracking them down in Chicago by disguising themselves as women and joining an integrated, all-women band heading to California. Their destination is California instead of Florida, like in the film version, because López and Ruffin wanted to be realistic about the limitations that racism and segregation created for Black performers at the time. The musical begins with Sweet Sue (NaTasha Yvette Williams), the band’s Black manager, singing in a speakeasy. The police raid the joint and arrest Sweet Sue, sending her off in a paddy wagon. After her right-hand woman, Minnie (Angie Schworer), bails her out, Sweet Sue complains that she always lands in jail while the gangsters running the speakeasies she performs in get a pass, a remark that underlines the disproportionate criminalization she faces as a Black woman.

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The cast of Some Like It Hot. Photo: Matthew Murphy.

Jerry, now going by Daphne, a name they pointedly chose over the feminine version of Jerry (Geraldine) that Joe suggested, makes fast friends with the women in the band and admires their new look in a mirror. Daphne’s gender exploration continues when the band arrives in California and they meet Osgood, refigured by López and Ruffin as a Mexican American businessman. At first, Daphne doesn’t want anything to do with him, but Osgood treats them respectfully and sees them for who they are; he sings “Fly, Mariposa, Fly” to them, which alludes to Daphne’s exquisite transformation over the course of the musical.

I found “Fly, Mariposa, Fly” and the following song, “You Coulda Knocked Me Over With a Feather” (both by Marc Shaiman and Scott Wittman), some of the most compelling moments in Daphne’s arc. At the end of “Fly, Mariposa, Fly,” they accept Osgood’s marriage proposal; when Joe confesses that he doesn’t understand why they would do that, they explain, “I am, in fact, both Jerry and Daphne.” They launch into the song and describe how they “feel more like myself than I ever have in all my life.” When they were just Jerry, they “always walked behind” and “only survived,” but they feel complete now that “Daphne’s arrived.” Daphne tells Joe that he can call them whatever he wants, “as long as it’s said with love and respect,” which struck me as somewhat trite—and, worse, as an excuse that spectators who are uncomfortable with trans people [End Page 560]

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Kevin Del Aguila (Osgood) and J. Harrison Ghee (Daphne) with the cast of Some Like It Hot. Photo: Marc J. Franklin.

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could use to shrug off the responsibility of learning their names and pronouns. Nevertheless...