Getting a hometown kick out of ‘Kinky Boots’

Once again Toby’s steps way over the boundaries of dinner theater

Sizzle sells, or as Kinky Boots proved on Broadway in 2013, “The Sex Is In the Heel.”

Matt Hirsh as Charlie and DeCarlo Raspberry as Lola in ‘Kinky Boots’ at Toby’s Dinner Theatre. Photo by Jeri Tidwell

Why was the musical named Kinky Boots? Maybe Fetish Footwear didn’t have quite the same kick. … Sorry.

Toby’s Dinner Theatre in Columbia is the first in our region to score the stage rights. As a jam-packed, opening night crowd at Toby’s found most recently, there’s still a hunger for the sort of old-time book musicals your mama once adored. You know the kind: The ones about glam-rock superheroes strutting all over your straitlaced conventions in their six-inch stilettos?

Okay, it’s not your mother’s Rodgers and Hammerstein. But whether you see it as trendy or trashy, trés chic or divinely decadent, Kinky Boots is only seeking a little understanding. It aims to win us over with enough heart and soul that we’ll back off on our gender defenses a bit, mentally slip into something slinky and sequined, and come back ready to join the parrrrr-tee!

While the plot derives from a popular 2005 British movie (itself based on a 1999 TV documentary about a Northampton shoe factory battling foreclosure), this Tony-winning Best Musical most heavily bears the imprint of its two celebrity co-writers: Cyndi Lauper and Harvey Fierstein.

Lauper’s R&B-inflected club songs tend to flash their messages at the world with all the blunt polish of a disco-ball. Harvey Fierstein (Newsies) fits them into a hugely commercial pattern with campy swag and gumption to spare.

At Toby’s, director-choreographer Mark Minnick animates the property with a truly sensational, one-of-a-kind lineup of talented singers and the sexiest cross-dressing chorus line this side of, well, Fierstein’s La Cage aux Folles.

The calm center of the stormy plot is Matt Hirsh as Charlie, an affable Brit who inherits his father’s dead-in-the-water shoe factory in blue-collar Northampton. More a singer than a dancer, Hirsh has a nice voice for soul-searching solos like “Soul of a Man.” He strikes a sort of Matthew Broderick “Everyman” vibe that makes us pull for him in finding a way to rescue the family business.

Fate intervenes in the form of a street mugging in which Charlie is knocked unconscious. He wakes up (much like Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz) to the alternate Technicolor world of a star-spangled drag queen named Lola, played by DeCarlo Raspberry.

DeCarlo Raspberry playing Lola in ‘Kinky Boots’ at Toby’s Dinner Theatre. Photo by Jeri Tidwell

Regulars at Toby’s have long known DeCarlo Raspberry as an impish-faced bundle of gargantuan stage gifts and charisma. But we may have never suspected just how sizable his gifts really are until seeing him step off that drag-show runway in full evening glitz and oceans of elegance.

Raspberry channels Harvey Fierstein in his every sharp quip and comeback, making such a strong impression as Lola that it’s a shock when he arrives later at Charlie’s factory dressed as a man. It’s Raspberry’s bravura performance of numbers like “Land of Lola” and the explosive “Hold Me in Your Heart” that display the full reach of his award-winning star power.

Bringing this production its full measure of diva appeal is the gorgeous lineup of Lola’s “Angels.” Among the shining revelations here are Randyn Fullard, Michael Mattocks, Ariel Messeca, Solomon Parker, David Singleton, and Mark Sullivan. David Singleton performs double duty as the show’s co-choreographer on those sultry “specialty” numbers.

Mary Kate Brouillet makes a strong Nicola in the thankless role of Charlie’s dispensable fiancée. Waiting in the wings for Charlie is the true blue-collar heroine Lauren, brought joyfully center stage by Jana Bernard doing a Lauper-esque turn in the plucky solo “The History of Wrong Guys.”

The usual excellent support is given by Toby’s stable of solid performing talents: Russell Sunday, Jeffrey Shanklin, David Bosley-Reynolds, David James, Jane Boyle and Coby Kay Callahan. Essential dramatic contributions also come from Ryan Holmes, Adrienne Athanas and Dustin Perrott.

The live pit orchestra is reliably conducted by Ross Scott Rawlings, providing plenty of drive and flounce for the colorful choreography.

As with any show adapted to performance in-the-round there have been tradeoffs. The depressed environment of a factory in Northampton is hardly conjured at all on center stage, and the glamour of a Milan runway is left entirely to the imagination. At times, too, the cast is so intent on British regional dialects that the dialogue or lyrics go flying by in a hodgepodge of mushed vowels.

However, the show’s essential message of respect for the differences of others comes through loud and clear. The shared duet between Charlie and Lola, “Not My Father’s Son,” proves touchingly universal in its import. After all the lights have faded and the feathers are still, it’s that spirit of acceptance you will remember and that will make you glad you were there.

Running Time: About two hours and 30 minutes, plus one 30-minute intermission.

Kinky Boots plays through March 22, 2020, at Toby’s Dinner Theatre of Columbia— 5900 Symphony Woods Road in Columbia, MD. For tickets, call 1-800-88-TOBYS or go online.

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