Cyndi Lauper’s Kinky Boots

Turning to the commercial theatre, 
Lauper scores a triumph

Dexter Joins the Kinky Boots Cast

     Kinky Boots won six Tony awards in June including Best Musical and Best Score in a headlong battle with the British musical Matilda.  It’s tough to find out much about a show from the Tony broadcast.  Though it’s usually the most entertaining
awards show with the most articulate presenters and winners, there’s only a three to five minute number from each show and they’re usually bright, loud, and feature most of the cast.  

     Matilda focused on a pack of little girls jumping around in outrage at their six foot, very large boned female teacher, played by a male actor and looking sort of transgendered.  Kinky Boots featured workers on a factory assembly line singing vigorously and gesticulating wildly about making shoes while they were sort of working.  Matilda received the better reviews, but Kinky Boots had the creative star power.  Though it’s an American musical, it’s based on a 2005 British movie.  It was a slight, touching comedy that incorporated eccentric, slightly outré touches with everything working out in the end.  The basic message was accepting others while accepting yourself.  The show’s creators smartly kept the setting in England instead of moving it to the U.S. and having to find equivalents, as was the case with The Full Monty.

Cyndi Lauper
With Her 2013 Tony

     The Kinky Boots score deserves its acclaim and this is due to Cyndi Lauper.  She’s the first solo woman to win the Tony for her score.  American musicals of the past fifteen years or so have either tried to imitate the intricate lyrics and complex musical phrasing of Sondheim’s work, or have collected known songs from a specific musical genre or group and hung a story to them, or have tried to meld contemporary pop or rock to the demands of theatre.  Kinky Boots is an example of the third category.

The Broadway Cast of Kinky Boots

     The music is upbeat, charming, and eminently hummable with lyrics that are deeper than a listener might initially expect.  This dichotomy has been the hallmark of Lauper’s composing and the reason that a number of her songs have become standards – their use in advertising campaigns has also helped.  Lauper uses syntax and some vocabulary that is British, but can be easily understood by Americans since they’ve had to deal with this type of thing since the Beatles.  She cleverly incorporates some Glitter or glam rock touches that recall Mott the Hoople or T. Rex.  It reminded Neil a little of Starlight Express.  Whatever its forebears, I think it’s the best example of a book musical score in a pop rock vernacular since Duncan Sheik’s Spring Awakening.