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Tootsie Broadway Review: Dorothy Michaels Is Back And Standing On Her Own Two Pumps

Weve all had that moment of genius, usually while getting stuck on TCM, when the brilliant idea reveals itself to us: This film really deserves a remake, an update stripped of archaic notions or bad hair and polished to a shiny modern sheen. Some movies all but demand it. Tootsie isnt one. Sydney Pollacks 1982 film starring Dustin Hoffman seems so perfectly of its time – right down to the blissful ignorance of its unexamined mansplaining – that any fiddling would seem as unnecessary as spray tan on a president.

Youll have just enough time during the false-start opening moments of director Scott Ellis wonderful new Tootsie to ponder such things, and then the musical and its star Santino Fontana grab hold and dont let go. Its not without a few runs in its stockings, but this Tootsie is a delight, a not-quite-blind date that plays out so much better than you could have imagined.

With music and lyrics by Tony-winner David Yazbek (The Bands Visit) and a laugh-out-loud book by Robert Horn (creator of Designing Women, writer for, among others, Bette Midler and Dame Edna), Tootsie hauls itself into 2019 leaving behind what needs leaving and, with a whopping exception or two, adding what needs adding.

Gone is the soap opera setting (makes sense – gone is New Yorks soap industry), replaced by a Broadway milieu that provides the obvious flourishes – music and dancing, for starters. The change in setting requires some sacrifices, from the small (no cameraman around to deliver the great “How do you feel about Cleveland?”) to the not so small (the films convincingly authentic depiction of the soap world gives way to a more cartoonish depiction of the theater community).

There are other sacrifices and missed opportunities, but first a recap: Michael Dorsey (Fontana) is a struggling and very difficult New York actor who, at 40, cant get through an audition without insulting the room, has just been fired by his agent (Michael McGrath) and has broken the heart of fragile ex-girlfriend Sandy (Sarah Stiles). Hes on better terms with his equally stunted roommate, longtime pal, the wannabe playwright Jeff (Andy Grotelueschen).

While helping run lines with Sandy for a stage audition, Michael, demonstrating how it should be done, has an epiphany: Hell audition for the female role himself, and does – successfully. Suspension of disbelief #1: If Dustin Hoffman in drag winning a bit part on a soap demanded our leap of faith, the Broadway casting-within-the-casting does so tenfold. Go for it and enjoy the rewards.

The cast of “Tootsie”

Michael, as the newly christened Dorothy, falls in love with the leading lady Julie (Lilli Cooper), now a stage songbird making ends meet in the sort of comically terrible Off Broadway production (this one an updating of Romeo and Juliet, with a happy ending) that dont really exist anymore. Suspension of disbelief #2.

No matter. Dorothys casting as Juliets nurse, and the Method Actor improvisations that supposedly elevate the production to hit Broadway status – #3 – bring the expected farcical misunderstandings. The piggish director (Reg Rogers) gives Dorothy a worthy comic foil, and the dimwitted but abs-perfect male ingenue (John Behlmann), a talentless newcomer from a Bachelor-type reality show, develops a crush on Dorothy thats surprising to both.

If you know the movie, you know what happens. There are some plot changes – Julie no longer has a father to complicate things, and her suspicion that Dorothy is a lesbian prompts a quite different response than Jessica Langes startled retreat.

Better still: The movies female soap director is here changed to a producer, a champion of Dorothy and, with the great Julie Halston in the role, another example of this productions treats.

Now, to address that big elephant: A farce based on gender disguise – even one as woke as Tootsie, which addresses (though mostly dismisses) the sticky issue of a man stealing a role from not only a woman but all women – could unwrap its misunderstandings with a simple 21st Century solution never entertained by this musical or its characters. Michael Dorsey is a heterosexual man who chooses, for whatever reason, to present as a woman named Dorothy. Now that wasnt so hard, was it?

Of course, pull that thread and the entire cashmere sweater comes undone, so youll either leave it be or you wont. If you do, youll witness a team at the topRead More – Source

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