Theatre in Review: Mrs. Doubtfire (Stephen Sondheim Theatre)

	Jenn Gambatese, Rob McClure. Photo: Joan Marcus

Mrs. Doubtfire, the not-bad/not-good new show at the Sondheim, offers a clinical case study of the perils of adapting popular film comedies to the stage, a concept that too many producers feel is the quickest, easiest way to a box office bonanza. Unless the creative team is prepared to bring something new to the material -- a fresh slant, a more contemporary sense of humor -- the result is likely to be something middling and unmemorable, like so many others we've seen in recent seasons. Something, in fact, like Mrs. Doubtfire.

The original film, you will remember, stars Robin Williams as Daniel Hillard, an improvident husband and chaotic parent who is summarily dumped by his fed-up wife. To be granted shared custody, he must demonstrate to the court that he is a responsible adult by finding an apartment and getting a steady job. (His up-and-mostly-down acting career doesn't count.) Desperate to keep in touch with his kids, he disguises himself as an elderly Scottish widow, getting himself hired as their nanny. Of course, Mrs. Doubtfire, his alter ego, is a dream substitute parent, but the more "she" gets embedded into the family, the harder Daniel must struggle to escape his all-too-successful creation.

It's the kind of flagrantly unbelievable premise that Hollywood adores, and on-screen it works largely because of Williams, the deft direction of Chris Columbus, and a supporting cast that includes Sally Field, Harvey Fierstein, and Pierce Brosnan. On Broadway, Rob McClure, a skilled clown -- and, right now, the hardest-working man in show business -- attacks the role with a terrier tenacity but, from the beginning, a certain magic is missing, in part because the book, by Karey Kirkpatrick and John O'Farrell, often seems bent on sabotaging its leading man.

In the film, Daniel's character is so infused with Williams' irreplaceable comic persona that we're in his corner from the get-go. At the Sondheim, the early scenes establish Daniel as an antic joker performing largely for his own amusement. When the rest of the Hillards appear, nicely dressed, for a family photo, he enters costumed as a pirate -- a gambit that sets up a barrage of tedious "aaarh!" jokes. Blithely ignoring his wife, Miranda, he carries on heedlessly, knocking over the photographer's camera and cracking an expensive lens. Then comes the news that he has lost another job, thanks to "creative differences" with his director. Only ten minutes in, one wants to give Miranda a bit of Ann Landers' oft-quoted advice: Throw the bum out.

The number in this scene, "What's Wrong with this Picture," details how these ongoing marital tensions are eating away at the Hillard children, so much so that their school counselor is sounding the alarm. Topping it off, Daniel sneaks the kids out of school, staging a birthday party for his son, Christopher, that spins out of control, climaxing with the arrival of a stripper. (It's a mistake, we are assured.) Even an appearance in divorce court, fighting for his parental rights, does little to assuage Daniel's immature, pugnacious attitude. "Mr. Hillard, do you consider yourself humorous?" asks a social worker assigned to his family's case. Really, I was thinking the same thing.

The book's refusal to tip us off to Daniel's essential good nature is a terrible miscalculation. Of course, there's no musical unless he is deeply flawed, a Peter Pan with thinning hair who needs to grow up, pronto. But the film is careful to show that he quits a voiceover job for reasons of conscience and that he is an adored father; also, the birthday party features a petting zoo, not a blonde floozie in a soccer-ball bra. Not until well into the first act does McClure, through sheer tenacity and true grit, manage to turn this situation around. In a funny way, Mrs. Doubtfire may be the greatest testament to his talent yet.

Such problems tend to occur whenever feathery film comedies are turned into musicals: The story line is overexplained, the jokes coarsened, the farce action made laborious. Like so many others, Mrs. Doubtfire focuses on the wrong things. Rather than working to lend an emotional reality to the characters and their problems -- a strategy that would give us the freedom to ignore the plot's many implausibilities -- the musical's creators go for easy laughs and big, crowd-pleasing production numbers.

Under Jerry Zaks' direction -- aided by Lorin Latarro's varied, step-lively choreography, this approach sometimes works. There's a reliably hilarious running gag involving Daniel's brother, Frank, who unconsciously shouts when lying, a tic that gets an extensive workout here. The number "Make Me a Woman," in which Daniel is transformed into Mrs. Doubtfire by Frank, a costumer, and his fashion-forward husband Andre, explodes into an amusing fantasia featuring Jacqueline Onassis, Grace Kelly, and Princess Diana (in yet another musical!) getting upstaged by the likes of Eleanor Roosevelt, Julia Child, and (mysteriously) Oscar Wilde. In "Easy Peasy," Daniel/Mrs. Doubtfire, trapped into cooking a meal, turns to the Internet for instructions, cueing a chorus of tap-dancing chefs; the number is amusingly interrupted by one of those ghastly YouTube commercials, in this case for irritable bowel syndrome. And when Daniel is left alone with a loop machine for some freestyle improvisation ("About Time"), the result is both simple and simply delightful.

But this is a hit-or-miss evening, with good gags followed by laugh lines in need of a good, long rest -- starting with Frank and Andre's list of drag names, among them Shirley U. Jest and Anita Goodslap. The show frequently pushes its luck in the credibility department, when Daniel/Mrs. Doubtfire rocks out with the Hillard kids or when he is forced to help model the new sportswear line designed by Miranda. Thus "The Shape of Things to Come" features a scantily clad Daniel/Mrs. Doubtfire prowling the catwalk with a bevy of lithe young fashion plates. ("My whole mission was to make this line for all shapes and ages," Miranda says, which doesn't explain the collection of Heidi Klum clones onstage.) The number climaxes with a Mrs. Doubtfire break dance -- which, along with jokes about Donna Summer, Margaret Thatcher, Janet Reno, and Jennifer Holliday might leave you wondering exactly when the show is supposed to be taking place.

The score, by Wayne and Kirkpatrick, is breezy, energetic, and almost always ingratiating, although "Just Pretend," a climactic confrontation between Daniel and his older daughter Lydia, doesn't deliver much of an emotional punch. Once he gets past those debilitating early scenes, McClure is the nimblest of clowns, spooning out dollops of faux-Scottish wisdom, peddling bald-faced lies to one and all, and looking increasingly wild-eyed as he gets tangled up in complications of his own making. As Miranda, Jenn Gambatese, in an early front-runner for most thankless role of the season, at least makes something powerful out "Let Go," in which she pours out her marital woes to Mrs. Doubtfire, giving Daniel a much-needed earful. In the equally bland role of Stuart, Miranda's new love interest, Casey Garvin (in for Mark Evans at the performance I attended) smoothly plays straight man to McClure, doing his undermining best in the number "Big Fat No."

Brad Oscar and J. Harrison Ghee provide authoritative support as Frank and Andre, Daniel's unwilling accomplices. Peter Bartlett does his usual mental-fog-as-a-gag bit as a TV host at the end of his tether. Charity Angél Dawson is a bulwark of bureaucratic attitude as a skeptical social worker keeping tabs on Daniel. (Too bad she gets stuck with an overdone, overlong nightmare sequence, featuring a chorus line of Mrs. Doubtfires.) Jodi Kimura earns laughs as a stone-faced producer ("I guess children's television shouldn't make you want to kill yourself") interested in hiring Daniel. Avery Sell -- a young performer with presence, a fine voice, and incisive acting skills -- stands out as Lydia, who is tired of being the adult in the house; her siblings are charmingly played by Jake Ryan Flynn and Analise Scarpaci. Then again, Sell and Flynn are sufficiently long in the tooth as to leave one wondering why they need a nanny daily between the hours of three and seven.

The show benefits from one of the slickest, cleverest design packages since New York's theatres reopened. David Korins' scenery includes a stunning slice of the San Francisco skyline, a streetscape depicting the city's famous "painted ladies" Victorian row houses, two versions of Daniel's divorce apartment, and a Spanish restaurant featuring a transparent wall through which we see Daniel frantically popping in and out of his wig and fat suit in a doomed attempt at meeting two simultaneous dining obligations. Costume designer Catherine Zuber (aided by hair and wig designer David Brian Brown) skillfully recreates the iconic Mrs. Doubtfire look; she also keeps everyone else appropriately dressed in addition to furnishing Miranda with an attractive fashion line. Philip S. Rosenberg's lighting adds plenty of sparkle and color to the numbers, pacing them expertly to build excitement. Brian Ronan's sound design is typical of his work: big, bright, and thoroughly intelligible.

The result is shiny, professional, and uninspired, a passable entertainment that struggles to avoid invidious comparisons with its predecessor. Mrs. Doubtfire gets more likable as it goes on, managing to be fairly touching by the final curtain. And, opening at this moment, it may fill a slot for audiences in search of a new family show. But it feels like another case of borrowed goods, an adaptation that fails to find an identity of its own. It never breathes its own air. --David Barbour