Robin Williams had a big success in the 1993 film. He played, you will remember, a divorced voice-over actor, who lost custody of his children in a court ruling and disguised himself as a soft-spoken, 60-year-old Scots housekeeper so that he could be near the three kids he loved so deeply.
The sentimentality was squirm-making but Williams’s memorable performance was very funny and hilariously so in a farcical scene in a restaurant when he is frantically alternating between the two personae.
Men have been dressing up as women ever since theatre began, back to ancient Greece and beyond and forward to Shakespeare and Victorian panto and Charley’s Aunt and on to Tootsie and Mrs Doubtfire on film.
Mrs Doubtfire is not a drag act. It is an impersonation. Gabriel Vick in a tartan skirt, plus wig and facial make-up, is made to look like Robin Williams’s Mrs Doubtfire; but he remains totally himself when he is out of costume. The role is a major turning point in his career, a star-making performance. What is amazing are the instant transformations from man to woman, the changing back and forth at lightning speed and in full view of the audience.
Jerry Zaks directs a slick production, which is aimed at family audiences who won’t mind too much that Mrs Doubtfire doesn’t really work as a musical. The story has no need for songs and dances. They get in the way. Wayne and Karey Kirkpatrick’s unmemorable music and lyrics and Lorin Latarro’s choreography always feel unnecessary, merely added on and never an essential part of the show. The funniest innovation is a chorus line of Mrs Doubtfires.
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