Opening
Nights

PKinky Boots

5th Avenue Theatre, 1308 Fifth Ave., 
625-1900, 5thavenue.org. $45.25 and up. 
Runs Tues.–Sun. Ends Oct. 26.

If you can’t see the Broadway original, a touring show is like the satisfying made-in-China knockoff of a famous designer brand. Thus the discount pleasure of Kinky Boots, which offers the style of a pair of (fake) Jimmy Choos coupled with the comfort of Uggs.

Winner of six Tony Awards, Kinky Boots only appears to be a subversive show. Based on the 2005 Brit-com (and some actual events), it follows the efforts of Charlie Price to save his struggling family shoe factory. He teams with drag queen Lola to revive the business by sating the neglected niche market for sturdy stilettos suitable for cross-dressers. Never mind the footwear or drag humor, this is an expertly crafted, mainstream show about accepting other people for who they are. No wonder it’s a Broadway smash, still propelled by the talents of director Jerry Mitchell, writer Harvey Fierstein, and songwriter Cyndi Lauper.

Lola is the flashy role here, yet Steven Booth’s depiction of demure Charlie demands as much attention as Kyle Taylor Parker’s pump-sporting Lola. And Joe Coots merits mention as the meat-headed bully Don, whose character undergoes a ponderous personal transformation.

This is a well-rehearsed ensemble—and also well-costumed, thanks to Gregg Barnes’ impeccably picked accessories—that delivers the big numbers with aplomb. The fashion-education production number “Sex Is in the Heel” amusingly argues why flats are utterly unacceptable. Closing Act 1, the kinetic and crowd-pleasing “Everybody Say Yeah” has the company celebrate the first Kinky Boot prototype by dancing on conveyor belts a la OK Go’s video for “Here It Goes Again.” And the show’s feel-good finale, “Raise You Up/Just Be,” supplies more sparkle than a Merv Griffin TV show, while reminding millennials that before Lady Gaga, there was Lauper.

My evening’s performance was not without a few forgivable technical foibles, namely some failed microphones and other sound flaws. Thus, after the number “What a Woman Wants,” I was left wondering exactly what the answer was.

For the same price as a nice new pair of shoes at Nordstrom, a better value is a ticket to Kinky Boots—a show as classic as Chanel and as fun as Betsey Johnson. Alyssa Dyksterhouse

Worth My Salt

Velocity Dance Center, 1621 12th Ave., 
325-8773, velocitydancecenter.org. 
$15–$20. 8 p.m. Fri.–Sun. Ends Oct. 26.

Both George Balanchine’s Apollo and Jody Kuehner’s Worth My Salt start with a birth and feature a trio of Greek muses/assistants—just one of myriad off-the-wall references in this new work featuring Kuehner’s stage persona Cherdonna Shinatra. The lanky, clownish Cherdonna and the Greek god both begin their lives as gawky, coltish newborns, then struggle for mastery of their physical selves and the worlds they grow into. But while Apollo finds himself through the discipline of neoclassical ballet, Cherdonna follows a more circuitous kinetic path—including snippets of Martha Graham in her high-priestess mode, Shelley Duvall as Olive Oyl in Popeye, and Goldie Hawn’s bikini-clad flower child from Laugh-In.

Kuehner originally developed Cherdonna opposite Ricki Mason’s Lou Henry Hoover, creating a Mutt and Jeff pair: a tall and wobbly-voiced goof (Cherdonna) matched with a small, dapper host. In her first solo show, Cherdonna still has a knack for non-sequitur narration and over-the-top presentation—her makeup has shifted from drag queen to full-blown clown mask. Her wig (by Pakio Galore) looks like cotton candy styled in a wind tunnel. If possible, the physicality is even more random than in the past. Cherdonna resembles a marionette whose strings are attached to a cat’s tail, bobbing and weaving until she almost collapses, only to lurch off on another tangent. Corrie Befort’s stage-filling set, a box made of floral wallpaper, just barely contains her. You get the sense that without it she’d be wandering out onto the street.

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orth My Salt is essentially a very loose origin story, as Cherdonna enacts her autobiography for the trio of toga-clad assistants—Jim Kent, Randy Phillips, and David Wolbrecht—who fill various roles, including cheerleaders, porters, fall guys, Fates, and chorus boys.

Cherdonna lives at an intersection of dance, comedy, drag, and performance art, shifting precariously among them at the bat of her false eyelashes. Kuehner will pull the rug out from beneath herself, if no one else will do it for her. Even as the lights fade during the show’s seeming finale (a truly affecting performance of Mikhail Fokine’s Dying Swan), Cherdonna jerks back to her feet, proclaiming “I’m not gonna die!” in her endearingly screechy voice. It’s yet another detour in an evening full of baffling turns and changes of tone—a cliffhanger ending for this fascinating chapter in the ongoing story of Cherdonna Shinatra. Sandra Kurtz

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