Actor, and playwright Harvey Fierstein was openly gay and fighting for LGBT rights early in the game. Torch Song Trilogy brought Fierstein success on Broadway, winning him two Tony Awards before it was made into a feature film that garnered him an Independent Spirit Award for Best Male Lead. He has a strong track record, writing La Cage aux Folles, which won him another Tony, for Best Book of a Musical.
His roles in movies like Mrs. Doubtfire and appearances on TV shows such as The Simpsons, Nurse Jackie and How I Met Your Mother have left lasting impressions with viewers over the years.
Recently, he has continued to write more heartfelt dialogue for such shows as A Catered Affair, Newsies and, now, Kinky Boots.
Windy City Times talked to the man behind the musical right before Kinky Boots officially opened in Chicago.
Windy City Times: Hi, Harvey. I heard you were at the show last night.
Harvey Fierstein: Yes, I am at the show most nights.
WCT: How did you become involved in Kinky Boots in the first place?
Harvey Fierstein: That's not much of a story. Jerry Mitchell called me. I liked the movie.
WCT: How much from the movie went into the musical?
Harvey Fierstein: It is a true story. I don't know the actual people but I have read a couple of articles about them. It's about people who are alive, so you try to not put words in their mouths. I wanted to be fair to everyone. You have a little bit of responsibility there, which is different than a fictional story. I tried to be respectful as I could about changing certain things that I didn't believe.
WCT: For example?
Harvey Fierstein: You know, like, in the movie Charlie's girlfriend fucks around behind his back; I thought that was unnecessary. That was more "Hollywood movie," using that term loosely. In relationships there is usually something else going on when somebody cheats.
WCT: I noticed some updating with the show.
Harvey Fierstein: We didn't really put a time period on it. I tried to keep any political or social references out because you like to think the show will be around forever. I didn't think there was any updating from the movie and, clothes-wise, it seemed pretty general as well.
WCT: I was thinking about the cell phones and laptops.
Harvey Fierstein: Well, I don't think we are going backwards. Cell phones in Europe were bigger there much earlier than us. We didn't even plasma television until 10 years after Europe already had them. Everyone in America thinks we get everything first!
WCT: The audience was very into the show last night, with all of your one-liners really cracking them up.
Harvey Fierstein: What is wonderful about the show is that the audience gets invested in it in a really beautiful way. They get to know these people and they are slowly let into their lives. It's not a typical Broadway show with a lot of kicking when the show starts! The audience gets slowly invested in the relationship between Charlie and Lola. With Lola's journey there were a lot of people around me crying with bittersweet and happiness. Obviously, nothing terrible happens in the show but people were invested. When Lola was in the nursing home and said, "My name is Simon," people went crazy up in the balcony.
WCT: I heard that!
Harvey Fierstein: That is the kind of stuff you want. When you hear the audience all laugh together, that is a lovely thing. When it hits a chord and people make their own statement it is really wonderful.
WCT: Was Lola your favorite character to write for?
Harvey Fierstein: No, she was easy because I sort of know that journey. She is so damaged. Someone that looks so tough and has it all going on, someone that you could throw against a brick wall and it won't make a dent, but that is all on the outside. She so hurt and scared on the inside. That is really fun to write for.
Out in the world Charlie is what you would run into most. These are people who would like to be happy and have no fucking clue how. They are people who you admire that are excited by life and don't know how to find their passion. Sometimes we go through that several times in our life, reinventing ourselves.
Like I said in the movie, they use the girlfriend cheating on him to motivate him but I felt that was wrong. That certainly wasn't the moment that I wanted. I wanted someone who gets thrown against the wall and at that moment find his passion, going from being forced to do something to wanting to do something. It is kind of wonderful to feel the audience feel that when he sings "Soul of a Man."
WCT: I love that song. Is writing a show like this cathartic for you, personally?
Harvey Fierstein: It is always cathartic; that is why you write. [If] you don't have to write if there is nothing you want to say, then why bother? I don't write newspaper articles or greeting cards. I write communication that has to be emotional, intellectual; at the core it has to reach an audience's mind or heart.
WCT: How long did the process take you to write the Kinky Boots?
Harvey Fierstein: There is no way to answer that question. It has more to do with scheduling, and there are over 200 people involved with the show.
WCT: Well, you have been busy. Newsies is still doing very well.
Harvey Fierstein: Yes, Newsies is a big hit on Broadway. I just went to see it last Sunday. I got to write a family show, which I had never tried before. I know young people will go into the theater and have their lives changed. Just the act of going into the theater, if I give them a good time, can turn them into theater queens, you know? Maybe it will make them like me, going into the theater as a kid. That is a boys' show; [it] is so rare to write a boys' show. Girls come screaming for the boys, though!
That show is much more political. That show is about banding together. That one has messages on changing the world that way. Kinky Boots is about changing your mind and [changing] the world.
WCT: I went and saw your show A Catered Affair when it was in town.
Harvey Fierstein: Was that by Porchlight?
WCT: Yes, it was.
Harvey Fierstein: They sent me stuff about it, and I heard it was a lovely production.
WCT: It was, and I imagine the mother was an important character for you to write. These women were such the backbones of the families at that time.
Harvey Fierstein: Yes, there is that. It was my little tribute to Paddy Chayefsky, of course; when I spoke with Gore Vidal he said it was all him! [Laughs] What attracted me to it was the idea of Sophie's Choice of what was more important: the future or the present.
But what I really wanted to write about was people unconscious in their own lives. You had the mother who was madly in love with her husband and sleeping in the same bed with someone 30 years and thinking he didn't love her. We can be that unconscious in our lives and we can be so busy in our thinking that we never open our eyes to see what is going on. I love that.
I used the uncle as a metaphor for how gay people used to live. We slept on our family's couches and had no lives of our own. We didn't think we deserved it. We lived on the fringe of heterosexual society. We never really belonged anywhere. You see what is awakened in that man. It was the 1950s so you know he isn't going too far. It was time for him to get off his sister's couch and get his own couch.
I was heavily criticized for that. Critics said it was a post-Stonewall message. To me, it was a human message. It may have not taken effect until later on, but people have been fighting for gay rights through the centuries in their own way. I wanted that moment as to when somebody realizes they have a right to have a life.
WCT: Your work has meant a lot to me, [with me] being gay.
Harvey Fierstein: You are gay? I didn't know that.
WCT: [Laughs] Yes, that mother-and-son scene in Torch Song Trilogy meant a lot to me.
Harvey Fierstein: That is, of course, wonderful. You never know how you touch people and you can only hope to be as honest as you can be. Like I said, you have to represent the characters and make sure they tell the truth. Why do we love stand-up comedians? We love the way they cut through to something so true that you have to laugh.
With the audience last night, everyone was having their individual reactions to the show. To me, that is really entertaining!
Kinky Boots the Musical officially opens Wed., Oct. 17, at the Bank of America Theatre, 18 W. Monroe St., with previews currently running. Visit www.broadwayinchicago.com for tickets today before Boots heads to New York and The Great White Way!
