Tootsie (Teatro) ★★★½

Book by Robert Horn. Music & lyrics by David Yazbek. Based on the movie by Larry Gelbart, Murray Schisgal & Don McGuire. Teatro at the Italian Forum. 26 May – 21 Jun, 2026.

Sydney is in the midst of a Yazbek sandwich — the second David Yazbek musical opening in as many days on either side of the CBD. This time it’s the 2019 adaptation of the 1982 satirical gender-equality comedy Tootsie, now receiving its Australian premiere at Teatro. But times have changed significantly since both the film and the Broadway opening. Can Tootsie survive an update?

Struggling actor Michael Dorsey (Andrew Bevis) is a dick. His argumentative, self-righteous, self-absorbed nature makes him impossible to work with. When his ex-girlfriend Sandy Lester (Alana Tranter) complains about her audition for the role of Juliet’s Nurse in a new Broadway musical, Dorsey decides to audition for the role himself — in drag. To everyone’s surprise, he gets the part. One problem: he’s falling for his co-star Julie (Elenoa Rokobaro), who only knows him as an older female mentor. As the pressure mounts, Dorsey must choose between success as a woman or love as a man.

Designer Dan Potra has traded the sequin-heavy look of The Prom for a wall of lights that alternately mimics a New York skyline or the colour-flash of a Broadway musical. Wig designer Helen Thatcher is working overtime — I’ve seen worse wig work in major commercial shows; here things look comedically elevated but always professionally slick. Director/choreographer Cameron Mitchell fills the stage with colour and movement, using the show’s large, talented ensemble to full effect.

On its own terms as a musical comedy, Tootsie is witty and fleet-footed, and this production goes to town with it. This isn’t Yazbek’s best score, but it’s a lot of fun — there’s a touch of the mania of Women on the Verge and the wordplay of Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, and songs like “Opening Number” and “Jeff Sums It Up” combine classic musical theatre motifs with funny lyrical subversions. Tyran Stig steals the show as Michael’s best friend Jeff — he gets the best lines and lands every one. Lachlan O’Brien is equally delightful as the lothario director Ron, his contempt for everyone around him perfectly calibrated. Andrew Bevis has the difficult task of playing the unlikeable Michael in drag, vocally leaping from his normal range into falsetto — a complex juggle, and one that plays directly into my critique of the show.

Here’s the problem: Tootsie is working on two levels, and only one of them holds up.

Eighties cinema was filled with condescendingly well-meaning comedies about terrible men learning to be less terrible — please don’t try to watch the utterly misguided race “comedy” Soul Man — and the results vary. Within that tradition, Tootsie the film was one of the more thoughtful examples; its heart mostly in the right place. By the time it hit Broadway in 2019 the world of gender was already a far more contentious place, and the musical was tying itself in knots trying to honour the film’s big moments while addressing its flaws. In 2026, those flaws are only more evident.

The awkward irony is that in a musical ostensibly preaching gender equality, the female roles are shockingly underwritten. Rokobaro is under-utilised as Julie — a featureless love interest with next to no agency — and Tranter’s Sandy is saddled with the role of the neurotic ex-girlfriend. Meanwhile the show’s feminist commentary is almost entirely delivered by men: Michael speechifies about gender inequality, Jeff provides the woke asides. It’s the creative equivalent of mansplaining sexism to women. For all its good intentions, the show has nothing more to say about gender inequality than a few quips about Dorsey taking a pay cut because they think he’s a woman.

Which brings us back to Michael Dorsey, who is — as mentioned — a dick.

The show tells us he’s a talented performer, as if talent were an excuse for bad behaviour, and seems to believe that putting on a wig means he understands womanhood. But his deeper flaw isn’t that he’s sexist — it’s that he’s fundamentally self-absorbed, and that doesn’t change because he puts on heels. He ends the show exactly as he began it: chasing his own goals. A difficult protagonist isn’t automatically a problem — Groundhog Day works precisely because Phil Connors’ nastiness is directly tied to his arc. He is selfish; the plot forces him to a place of transformation. By contrast Michael Dorsey’s selfishness isn’t addressed. The wig is a plot device, not a cure.

My advice? Put your gender-critical brain to sleep for the night and head to Teatro for frivolous fun. Taken purely as drag comedy with silly jokes and belting tunes, Tootsie is an easy night at the theatre. It doesn’t bear thinking about too deeply.