Review: MRS. DOUBTFIRE at Broadway at the National in DC

Rob McClure did not win a Tony for his star turn on Broadway as Mrs. Doubtfire (he was nominated), but he will win your heart through October 15 at the National. The pandemic really messed up the original production of this show. It premiered in 2019, previewed in 2020, opened on Broadway in 2021, and then did that again in 2022. Now it's running in London and is in DC as part of the US tour which will end in July in the town where it is set, San Francisco. There, they'll love David Korins' set design of their city by the bay with a lofty cityscape as a backdrop and soft, Victorian interiors in purple and green in the Pacific Heights home where Daniel Hillard's wife and three kids live. San Francisco will leave its heart with Rob McClure.

McClure sings, acts, dances (duh); he plays two characters at the same time; he does voices (e.g. Gollum, ET, Miss Piggy, Agent Orange [that's what Spike Lee calls the 45th POTUS, who shall not be named]); he can beatbox, work puppets, and Rob McClure can change costumes, very frequently--yeah, sure, in the wings with dressers--but also in full view of the audience sometimes with the help of other characters and sometimes alone. So frequently! But you know what else? He can give focus, because this is not a one-man show, and several other performers help tell Mrs. Doubtfire's story. So Rob McClure shares the spotlight: talented, generous, and only seven more performances in DC.

Some cast members will have to add a new "special skills" category to their resumés after this tour: "able to keep a straight face while in a comic scene with Rob McClure." Among them: Leo Roberts as Stu, the tall bowl of soup who Daniel Hillard's wife has begun dating. He sings like a Lancelot and takes large steps like Miles Gloriosus while working out; Maggie Lakis (as Daniel's wife, Miranda), a great singer too, especially in the show's final number, "As Long as there is Love"; Jodi Kimura as Janet Lundy, who hires Daniel to create a new and improved children's TV show which will star Mrs. Doubtfire; Romelda Teron Benjamin, as Wanda, the ain't-nobody-got-time-for-this social worker to whom Daniel must answer. She keeps it, him, and the audience a hundred. Giselle Gutierez as Daniel's eldest daughter, Lydia, who also contributes to the maturing of Daniel's character without ever seeming harsh; they've got a lovely duet, "Just Pretend," in Act II. Vying with Kimura for "Best Deadpan in Mrs. Doubtfire" is ensemble member Lannie Rubio, who clicks a wicked Flamenco while singing at both the onstage and in-house audiences, with McClure capering very nearby. She nails it. Aaron Kaburick and Nik Alexander, as Daniel's brother and brother in law, ably set up "Make me a Woman," a number in which they spitball who Daniel might look like for his interview with Miranda. What they think up gives the hard working, twelve member ensemble one of their many great sequences in Mrs. Doubtfire and Costume Designer (8-time Tony winner) Catherine Zuber many challenges. Cher, Jackie O., Grace Kelly, Donna Summer for some ladies; Julia Child, Eleanor Roosevelt, Margaret Thatcher for some guys.  (But did Donna Summer ever really wear a thong?  Gives new meaning to the notion that she worked hard for the money.)

Director Jerry Zaks (4-time Tony winner) ringleads the two and a half hours of fun. The zany team which created Something Rotten, Wayne Kirkpatrick, Karey Kirkpatrick, John O'Farrell, has written Mrs. Doubtfire. And except for a gratuitous scene with ten or twelve dancing Mrs. Doubtfires, they've not just successfully adapted a fine and memorable film but waved a musical comedy wand over it to refresh and enhance it. The Kirkpatricks' long and varied career before Broadway enables them to write original kinds of songs for original kinds of moments and characters. Their work may not wind up in the Great American Songbook, but right now Broadway needs good songwriters because Lin-Manuel Miranda can't do it all by himself, and jukeboxes are not particularly original. Now if someone would just unplug a couple of the dozen-plus speakers. . . . . Well, we'll always have Paris; we'll always have Robin Williams. But we've only got Rob McClure through Sunday.

(Photo by Joan Marcus)

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