In Billy Wilder's classic film "Some Like it Hot" there are two unlikely love stories. One is the one between Marilyn Monroe as Sugar and Tony Curtis as Joe, who has smuggled himself into a women's band while fleeing from gangsters in women's clothes. Not only does he pretend to her several times that he is someone else, namely her fellow musician Josephine and an heir to millions, he is also broke and a saxophonist, a type she wants to stay away from – but in the end everything is forgotten, and not only because Sugar, as Monroe faithfully assures, is not very bright. In the motorboat, they sink into each other's arms.

Jörg Thomann

Editor in the "Life" section of the Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung.

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The second love story is even less likely. The real millionaire heir Osgood has fallen in love with Joe's buddy Jerry, who pretends to be bassist Daphne, and while he steers the boat, Jerry tries with growing desperation to talk him out of it - until the final confession that he is a man and Osgood's legendary response "Nobody's perfect". At the time, it seemed absurd and stunned not only Jack Lemmons Jerry, but also the audience. Both couples are in the same boat, but despite Osgood's fabulous tolerance born of love blindness, we know that only one of them will head for the port of marriage, it is 1959.

"Some Like it Hot" was declared the best American comedy of all time by the American Film Institute, for Tom Tykwer the film ignites a "revolutionary queer firework" – but a large number of the gags are rooted in the fact that women are in the clothes of men.

A gamble

A retelling of "Some Like it Hot" is a gamble – not only because of the original's unbroken popularity, but also because times have changed. The authors Matthew López and Amber Ruffin did not deter this, they brought "Some Like it Hot" to Broadway as a musical with the songwriters Marc Shaiman and Scott Wittman, with great success: On Tuesday, the play, which premiered in December, was nominated for 13 Tony Awards, the absolute top value of this Broadway season.

If you've seen the musical at the Shubert Theatre, you think it's deserved. Acting, singing and (tap) dancing are first-class, the tempo high to a dizzying finale. And the changes? Joe (Christian Borle) no longer pretends to be an oil tycoon, but a German-born screenwriter, Adrianna Hicks carries different injuries than Marilyn Monroe's Sugar and is more modern, more self-confident, also less charismatic. Finally, as Jerry/Daphne, J. Harrison Ghee is an imposing appearance: tall, muscular, handsome, black. Jack Lemmon can only be heard as a distant echo, in a duo with Filou Joe, this Jerry is the straight man, the normal.

But not what the term also means: heterosexual. Because this is the decisive modernization of this new version: Once in the female role, this Jerry discovers a new side of himself, feels more fulfilled and closer to himself than ever before. It's fitting that the role is played by J. Harrison Ghee – a non-binary person who looks stunning in both suit and costume. With Ghee, the first non-binary person ever to be nominated for a Tony for Best Actor – as an actor, indeed, because so far the categories have been classically divided into male and female.

Even with Billy Wilder, Lemmons Jerry seemed to be genderfluid at times, even getting engaged to Osgood on a boozy evening, but had to let Joe reunite him. When asked why a man should marry a man, Jerry replied, "Security!"

Today, there are many other reasons for such a step. "There's a little Daphne in all of us," J. Harrison Ghee said. There is a happy ending for the Broadway Daphne and finally for poor Osgood, who thinks she is perfect as she is. The cheerful travesty becomes a transgender self-discovery, which is contemporary, touching and sympathetic and is cheered by the audience. However, it has to be said that it is also much less funny. But behind the comedy of the imperishable Wilder film, any other approach would probably have had to take a back seat.