MRS. DOUBTFIRE: DAD-TURNS-NANNY COMES TO BROADWAY, MANIC CHARM INTACT

The stage musical take on Mrs. Doubtfire, which opens tonight at the Sondheim after a less-than-blockbuster tryout in Seattle fully two years ago and a preview period interrupted for 18-plus months by the pandemic, was written by the creators of Something Rotten!, one of the silliest, funniest Broadway musicals in recent memory. It is directed by Jerry Zaks, the four-time Tony-winning master of the old-fashioned musical comedy. (His last major outing was the Bette Midler Hello, Dolly; his next on deck is the Hugh Jackman-Sutton Foster Music Man.) It’s got all that good will. And it’s got McClure, who ably pulls off the requisite clowning and the requisite quick shifts to sincerity, and sings and dances his way through innumerable, equally requisite, quick changes of costume. He makes the whole thing work.