Old-school musical theater fun flies in the face of DEI politics in ‘Some Like It Hot’ at PPAC

PROVIDENCE – Drag and gender fluidity. Color-conscious casting. A sense of humor.

These things may be in the crosshairs of Trump’s new Department of Government Efficiency’s anti-diversity, non-equity, sans-inclusion and no-fun policies, but they are an integral part of the recently musicalized and thoroughly entertaining rendition of the classic 1959 Billy Wilder film “Some Like It Hot.”

The show, a joyous romp by Matthew López and Amber Ruffin, is on tour and at PPAC after opening on Broadway in 2022 and winning four (Best Choreography, Best Costume Design, Best Orchestrations and Best Performance by a Leading Actor) of its 13 Tony Award nominations.

Grab a ticket while you still can.

The musical, like the film, features two jazz musicians – upright bassist Jerry (Tavis Kordell) and sax player Joe (played on the night of my attendance by understudy Michael Skrzek) – who witness a Chicago mob hit. They hide out by donning women’s clothes and joining the Society Syncopators, an all-female band, under the names Daphne and Josephine. All the while, mobster Spats Columbo (Devon Goffman, who touches on all the familiar tough guy tropes with great comic timing) is on their heels.

The show tweaks the film’s time and setting from Miami, Florida during the Roaring ’20s to Prohibition-era 1933 in San Diego, California, where illegal speakeasies – richly realized through Scott Pask’s stylish Art Deco sets and Gregg Barnes’ elegant period costumes – serve as a great excuse for the added musical numbers.

It also alters the racial composition of the featured characters, who in the film were white. Jerry, the starry-eyed lead singer Sugar Kane (a silver-throated Leandra Ellis-Gaston), and band leader Sweet Sue (a formidable Tarra Conner Jones) are portrayed by Black actors. The wealthy soda pop heir Osgood Fielding III (an abundantly endearing Edward Juvier), who falls for Jerry-as-Daphne while staying at his hotel, is Mexican American in this production. And Jerry’s gender has been reimagined as nonbinary.

These changes could well be considered woke, and there are times when the audience breaks into spontaneous applause in support of their existence. But the producers never turn this production into a soap box. Mostly, those changes serve to update the storyline and outmoded hiring practices of the classic film. And they do so without sacrificing its brilliant, madcap comedy. Ungainly men in unattractive dresses and motely wigs, for instance , still serve as a harmless running sight gag.

It could even be argued that the upgrades create additional opportunities for entertainment, for Osgood’s ethnicity results in one of the funniest and best staged songs in the show. His “Fly, Mariposa, Fly,” where he confesses his love for Daphne, is brilliant. And Jerry’s gender-fluidity gives voice to what was left smoldering in the film’s subtext regarding Osgood’s orientation.

Adding a score to this non-musical classic was even more risky than the updating. Afterall, composer/lyricist Marc Shaiman and lyricist Scott Whitman were responsible for the recent, short-lived and similarly musicalized “Catch Me If You Can” and “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory: The New Musical.” But the catchy music and clever lyrics in this production – particularly Sugar’s stunning “A Darker Shade of Blue” and the upbeat first-act finale “Some Like It Hot” – nicely facilitate the storytelling.

With the addition of Casey Nicholaw’s jazzy and tap-centric choreography, an extremely talented and well-conditioned ensemble to perform it and a terrific 12-piece orchestra to support it, the show’s production numbers soar. And they are anchored by two exceptional lead actors (understudy Skrzek steps up bigtime) who create extremely likable and always engaging characters.

The sound mixing in this production make it often difficult to hear the lyrics over the music – a problem that has apparently plagued this staging throughout its seven months on tour. Otherwise, director/choreographer Nicholaw does a superb job conjoining all the show’s many moving pieces and parts and keeping the pace fast and furious, just like a good old-fashioned musical ought to be.

Bob Abelman is an award-winning theater critic who also writes for The Boston Globe. Connect with him on Facebook.