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THE NEWYORKER, MAY 13, 2019 67
getting ahead? Delia occupies less story
time than Beetlejuice, obviously, but
Kritzer takes what script she’s got and
runs with it. She conveys Delia’s stu-
pidity without giving up her dignity:
desire can make dummies of us all at
times. And although her red hair is
twisted up like an antenna on top of her
head—Kritzer bears a striking resem-
blance to that other great mugger Carol
Burnett—the only signals Delia can
pick up on are potential threats to her
well-being. She’s too hapless to be a vil-
lain, too self-defeating to be much harm,
and, the evening I saw the show, Kritzer,
carried away by one of the big choreo-
graphed numbers, started laughing hard,
both in and out of character, and we
laughed with her, entertained by her
talent, her spirit of play, and the joy she
found in improvisation.I
f hair is character, Delia wants to shoot
straight up to some extravagant con-
stellation, while Sandy (Stiles), in Ellis’s
smooth rendition of “Tootsie,” who wears
her mane loose and curly, is like a hurt
animal, shivering on an overstuffed pil-
low, longing to be petted but flinching
before you can touch her: she can’t dis-
tinguish between a pat and a punch.
Sandy is primed for rejection—which
is what she seems to get every time she
goes to see her ostensible boyfriend, Mi-
chael (Santino Fontana, singing beauti-
fully in a variety of registers)—and being
a thirtysomething aspiring actress doesn’t
help. If you keep on trying out for parts
that nobody thinks you’re right for, how
can you feel right about anything, espe-
cially your own body?
Still, Sandy’s the sort of woman who
has survived on frayed pluck for a long
time, and who tries not to be who she
is—which is to say, insecure. It’s as if
she’d read a ton of self-help books and
were clinging to whatever hope they
offered her, and that’s part of her ap-
peal—the hope she has for herself, which
she’s happy to extend to other people.
Michael could use it. He’s an actor in
his thirties, too, living in a crappy walkup
with a roommate, Jeff (the excellent
Andy Grotelueschen), and he’s not being
cast, either; he’s such a pain in the ass
that no one wants to work with him.
Michael has other options, though, and,
when he dresses up as a woman to au-
dition for a part that Sandy wanted, it’snot so much betrayal that Sandy feels
as bewilderment and anger: is it possi-
ble that Michael is a better woman than
she could ever be?
Like the late, great Judy Holliday,
Stiles doesn’t play someone with a quiz-
zical nature; she is quizzical, and her
jingle-jangle nerves, existential and oth-
erwise, extend to the cosmos. Sandy’s in-
ternal soundtrack probably includes old
masochistic hits like “Why Was I Born?,”
but the song she sings near the begin-
ning of the show, as she’s helping Jeff
put together a birthday party for Mi-
chael, is called “What’s Gonna Happen”:I know what’s gonna happen
I’ll try to go to bed
With fear of failure flappin’
Like a fruit bat in my head
I’ll sleep for half an hour
The clock’ll ring at six
I’ll wake up in the shower
With a stomach full of bricks
So I won’t have any breakfast,
Maybe just a little tea,
Like when you have to go
And get a colonoscopy
Which incident’lly isn’t half as
Disconcerting or upsetting
As going for a part you know
There’s no way that you’re getting.Written by David Yazbek—he also com-
posed the music—the song is a come-
dic visit to the therapist who lives in
your head, the one who can’t help you
or quell your doubts as you go about the
business of living, let alone performing.
Jeff, a blocked writer, hears Sandy, and
it’s sweet to watch as he stands near her,
taking it all in, while she runs down the
list of what she won’t get, and how she
won’t get it.
As in everything by Yazbek and by
Robert Horn, who wrote the book,
there’s a strong ethos in “Tootsie.” The
characters speak and think in a language
that embodies certain contemporary
show-business concerns, such as when
touch is appropriate and what defines
masculinity and femininity. The show
doesn’t hammer you over the head with
these questions (nor does “Beetlejuice”),
and, when issues like these are lightly
but not frivolously handled, everyone
feels smarter because of it. We feel
smarter after watching Stiles’s perfor-
mance, too, because she approaches
shame and fear the way we would, if we
could: bravely, with bemused sympathy
and more than a little humor. ♦Critics Als Theatre 05_13_19.L [Print]_9507964.indd 67 5/2/19 9:52 PM
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