The new Broadway musical Mrs. Doubtfire, adapted from the 1993 film based on Anne Fine’s 1987 novel Madame Doubtfire, has received mixed reviews from New York theater critics. The show made its world premiere in 2019 at Seattle’s 5th Avenue Theatre and opened at Broadway’s Stephen Sondheim Theatre last night. The creative team includes Karey Kirkpatrick (book, score), John O’Farrell (book), Wayne Kirkpatrick (score), Jerry Zaks (direction), Lorin Latarro (choreography), Ethan Popp (orchestrations, arrangements), Zane Mark (dance arrangements), Zachary Dietz (music direction), David Korins (sets), Catherine Zuber (costumes), Philip S. Rosenberg (lights), Brian Ronan (sound), David Brian Brown (hair), and Tommy Kurzman (makeup, prosthetics).
The cast includes Rob McClure (Daniel / Mrs. Doubtfire), Jennifer Gambatese (Miranda), Analise Scarpaci (Lydia), Jake Ryan Flynn (Christopher), Avery Sell (Nattie), Brad Oscar (Frank), J. Harrison Ghee (Andre Mayem), Charity Angel Dawson (Wanda Sellner), Mark Evans (Stu Dunmeyer), Jodi Kimura (Janey Lundy), and Peter Barlett (Mr. Jolly).
AMNY (Matt Windman): Mrs. Doubtfire brings up the inevitable question of why the film has been adapted to a musical and what if anything the adaptation adds. … For the most part, the stage adaptation is competent but labored, with a weak, unmemorable score and a book that leans heavily on the gags and construction of the original film. … Mrs. Doubtfire plays at the Stephen Sondheim Theatre. … One hopes that future musicals that play the theater will be ones that at least make a good faith effort to live up to Sondheim’s innovative standards, as opposed to continuing the never-ending cycle of churning middlebrow musicals out of familiar movies.
Broadway News (Charles Isherwood): As the title character in the musical Mrs. Doubtfire, the superlative performer Rob McClure tears around the stage like a human tornado. … But his herculean efforts to lift the show into the musical theater heavens, while always fun to watch, are ultimately unavailing. Mrs. Doubtfire, like virtually all stage adaptations of popular movies, still feels like an unnecessary and at times laboriously strained transcription of the original film. … Audiences looking for something familiar and family-friendly will hardly go away disgruntled. But it represents another in a long line of forgettable musicals adapted from superior films.
Daily News (Chris Jones): A good time for all ages, despite our beloved, battered Broadway, is exactly what the audience-friendly, warm-centered, modestly scaled Mrs. Doubtfire delivers. … This superbly cast musical has been given a whiz-bang farcical staging by the wily old maestro Jerry Zaks, who has installed more physical shtick, especially from the droll ensemble, in almost any show since The Producers. … Add in some catchy contemporary tunes, a hilarious central performance from Rob McClure, cute Broadway-style kids and a big heart, and you’ve got a show that all kinds of folks will enjoy.
New York Theater (Jonathan Mandell): [Mrs. Doubtfire] has the misfortune of opening in the Broadway theater named after Stephen Sondheim a week after his death. Sondheim set a standard for musical theater that Mrs. Doubtfire doesn’t even attempt to meet. That’s not to say that this new musical comedy … is something rotten. … But none of the theater makers involved seemed to have spent time answering the kind of basic question that Sondheim liked to ask: Why does this need to be a musical?
New York Times (Maya Phillips): Mrs. Doubtfire simultaneously tries to replicate an outdated story and update it for the times. But the show only ends up cowering in the original film’s shadow. … The director Jerry Zaks’s ambivalent production tries to have it both ways: The story of a playful man-child with whom we empathize but whose good intentions can’t excuse his machinations. The film pulled it off at the time, primarily thanks to Williams’s charms. McClure’s Daniel, though, is more irritating than entertaining. … A man in drag? C’mon, it’s 2021.
Variety (Naveen Kumar): Mrs. Doubtfire, a polished and pandering new musical … has been dutifully trotting the bases of its source material (the 1993 film starring Robin Williams) for two hours by the time an aggrieved daughter pleads with her dad: “Please tell me you have a plan to end all of this.” … Her weary impatience could just as easily apply to the rote and persistent assembly line of commercial Broadway musicals fabricated from VHS favorites. … [McClure] delivers an undeniably charming and virtuosic performance. Showcasing his extreme vocal gymnastics and expert slapstick seems to be the production’s most convincing creative defense.