'Kinky Boots' review: Feel-good musical

Dissertations will surely be written about how, in the three decades since "La Cage aux Folles," drag-queen musicals became their own feel-good genre on Broadway.

Filling the niche with cheer and fine craftsmanship now is "Kinky Boots." Fittingly, this is the nonthreatening, crowd-pleasing adaptation of the 2005 movie about a shoe factory saved by niche-manufacturing stiletto boots for what characters (with dubious Brit accents) call "men in frocks."

But there is also news in this entirely predictable, tenderly unassuming extravaganza, written by Harvey Fierstein ("La Cage") and directed by Jerry Mitchell ("Legally Blonde") with almost scene-by-scene, line-by-line fidelity to the film. That news -- and it is very good indeed -- is Cyndi Lauper, who makes a smashing Broadway debut as composer and lyricist.

Stark Sands is engagingly conflicted as Charlie Price, saddled in the provinces with a failing old-world family business that his late father expected him to run. (The sadly elegant Victorian factory is beautifully designed by David Rockwell.) While in London with his hyper-ambitious fiancee, Charlie happens on Lola -- also called Simon -- a bruiser of a drag queen whose women's thigh-high, sky-high boots are not strong enough to support men.

Billy Porter, as Lola/Simon, switches impressively between his character's two formidable selves, every so often even imitating Fierstein's Beelzebub basso, measuring out the outrage and the outrageous with masterly command. He and Charlie, naturally, share standard-issue father issues.

Lauper, unlike many recent theatrical pop-crossovers, changes her sounds to illuminate each character without losing her identity. From the sexy-shoe disco to the I-will-survive finale, she somehow retains that Lauper she-bop voice with the delicate rhythmic underpinnings and a wicked yet humane humor as true and original as Fierstein's.

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Lauper and Fierstein are never onstage, but their spirits elevate a very conventional show with wit and sweetness.