A kinky throwback
If Mayer Hawthorne is the bespectacled ne’er-do-well hiding out under the bleachers knocking back burning gulps from a flask at the Enchantment Under The Sea high school dance then Nick Waterhouse is a four-eyed Johnny Angel slow dancing with the teacher’s pet, consciously putting enough distance in between to fit an inflated balloon. Or, at least that’s the image the Los Angeles-based crooner projects even as the lyrics on his old-school R&B-fueled debut, Time’s All Gone (Innovative Leisure), suggest otherwise. The sculpted horns, femme fatale backup singers (who would never risk raising the eyebrow of a censor), and guitar skewing more Jim Hall than Chuck Berry give Waterhouse’s pastiche the crisp lines of a well-pressed suit. However, his voice carries a fever that no amount of hair gel and yearbook picture posing can quell. (Wednesday@Lincoln Hall with Allah Las.)
— Janine Schaults
Cyndi Lauper has done a great job of maintaining her artistic career and not becoming the 80s one-hit wonder she could have easily been. She continually makes new creative moves and packs each one of them with so much heart, soul, and personality that millions of fans keep coming back for more. Her latest endeavor is the musical Kinky Boots, a show inspired by a true story and based on the feature film of the same name. The show, written in collaboration with four-time Tony Award winner Harvey Fierstein, concerns one Charlie Price, who is forced to step in and try to save his family’s shoe factory in the North of England following the death of his father. Help comes in the form of an absolutely fabulous drag queen named Lola and the business is revived through the power of fetish footwear while teaching a whole community something important about acceptance.
Sex Is In The Heel – The Remixes finds a variety of artists (Rich Morel, Danny Verde, RLP, Honey Dijon, and Jochen Sims) giving their take on one of the production’s show-stopping songs. Each retelling of the track is a lot of fun, mostly because the underlying song has a cool disco-meets-Vogue vibe that can’t be beat. Highlights are the Danny Verde Club Mix and Morel’s Hot Sauce Mix, but the whole set works and fans of dance music will find much to like here. The world premiere of Kinky Boots kicked off in Chicago earlier this month before moving on to Broadway in 2013. Based on the more than 30 million records Lauper has already sold, the show promises to be a big hit and could very well garner the so-unusual-one a Tony of her own to go along with the Grammy and Emmy Awards she already has. (Until Nov. 4@Bank Of America Theater.)
— Mike O’Cull
Category: Featured, Stage Buzz, Weekly
