By Sandi Masori
SAN DIEGO —- Trying to fill shoes once occupied by the legendary Robin Williams is no easy task, and yet in Broadway San Diego’s production of Mrs Doubtfire, Rob McClure manages to do just that with both heartwarming and hilarious results. McClure manages to create a funny and lovable character that’s all his own while still just as entertaining as the Williams’ version.
For those unfamiliar with the 1993 movie, it’s basically the story of a creative man who though he’s a lot of fun suffers from Peter Pan syndrome, leaving his wife to do all the actual parenting of their three children. Fed up, his wife Miranda (Maggie Lakis) files for divorce, resulting in Daniel losing custody of his kids and being conscripted to seeing them only one night a week. In the meantime, his wife is looking for a nanny to take care of the kids after school. Desperate to be with them, with the help of his costume designer brother Frank (Aaron Kaburick) and his brother-in-law Andre (Nik Alexander), he invents the alter ego Mrs. Doubtfire to apply for the job as the kids’ nanny. Hilarity ensues.
On the first Wednesday of most Broadway San Diego shows, after the performance, some of the actors will come out and answer questions from the remaining audience. They call it an actor chatback. Usually we get some of the supporting cast, the ensemble, or even the stage crew. This time, in addition to one of the dancers/ understudies and a couple of the kids, we got the principal himself. McClure was amazingly personable and sweet, even jumping over rows of seats to take pictures with fans (something I have never seen at a chatback before). This is a great time to learn a bit more about the show, the actors, the experience, etc.
McClure, whose credits include Broadway and TV (including an appearance on The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel) shared with us that if it seems like there’s a great chemistry between Daniel and Miranda, it’s because McClure and Lakis are real life husband and wife. As he quipped, the secret to their successful marriage is that they’ve been getting divorced every night for six years. He also shared that contrary to popular belief, in one of the really funny scenes where he creates a song on a loop machine, it’s not pre-recorded as most believe, but he is creating the song live and it’s a little different every night. This is one of my favorite scenes in the show.
McClure also shared that there’s a moment in the show when he first comes out with the Mrs Doubtfire voice that he can feel the audience relaxing and giving him permission to do the part, and also that the high LPM (laugh-per-minute) rate in the first act helps the audience take the emotional journey in the second act.
While the prosthetics in the movie look like it’s a simple mask that can easily go on and off, in fact Robin Williams had to sit through a painstaking four hours of makeup. For the play however, according to McClure, the mask has to be taken on and off 38 times in a time frame ranging from 90 seconds at the longest to only 18 seconds at the shortest. So, it had to be removable as a single piece, in seconds. The prosthetic house that made it came up with an ingenious design that keeps McClure’s own eyes, forehead and mouth open, and molds to the rest of the face. McClure, the understudies and the other actors who wore the masks in the nightmare scene had to have molds made from their faces, and then the mask is built out around that, so while the outside of the mask looks exactly the same, the inside is specially fitted to the actor.
All in all the show was incredible, delightful, phenomenal even. Besides McClure and Lakis, other stand out performers are Romelda Teron Benjamin who nails it as the social worker Wanda Sellner, Kaburick as Frank, and Alexander as Andre.
I loved this show. I might even go so far as to say that it’s one of my top five shows ever. Even my teenage son had a giant grin from ear to ear during it. The most disappointing thing about Mrs. Doubtfire is that the run is over on June 9, so get in to see it while you can.
Sandi Masori is a theater and restaurant reviewer for San Diego Jewish World.