Porter still star of 'Kate'
By JOHN FLEMING © St. Petersburg Times, published December 5, 2001
TAMPA -- Kiss Me, Kate is a throwback to the days when musical theater was all about fun and foolishness, with its play within a play within a play in which Shakespeare meets Cole Porter. The ballyhooed revival of Porter's 1948 backstage musical opened Tuesday night at the Tampa Bay Performing Arts Center.
Rex Smith and Rachel York are the divorced, battling thespians headlining a road-show production of The Taming of the Shrew: The Musical, but the true star of the show, as always, is Porter's gift for goofily inspired lyrics. Who else could rhyme "Sanka" and "Bianca" and make it work?
Michael Blakemore's staging is full of deft touches, right from the opening that takes place on a bare stage, with stagehands walking around, the orchestra tuning up and a single light burning, until the cast gradually assembles to deliver one of the show's many standards, Another Op'nin' Another Show.
Onetime teen idol Smith is not ideal as actor-director-producer Fred Graham -- for one thing, the part is written for a deeper, richer singing voice -- but he has his moments. Surprisingly, they come not so much in the pompous, hammy Graham side of the role but in his delivery of the Shakespearean speeches of the shrew's tamer, Petruchio, and that irresistible lament of the bachelor turned husband, Where Is the Life That Late I Led?.
York may be a bit young and saucy for stage diva Lilli Vanessi, but her bright soprano was beautiful in the minor-key torch song So In Love, though she had to battle to be heard over the orchestra, which had a tendency to be too loud under conductor James Moore. As the combative Kate, she tossed flowerpots, a stool, a goblet and plates with wicked accuracy, and her version of the bawdy, comic I Hate Men was a highlight.
Lois Lane, the ingenue role, often threatens to steal the show, and Jenny Hill upheld the tradition with her sexy treatment of a couple of classics, Why Can't You Behave? and Always True to You (In My Fashion).
Veteran leading man Chuck Wagner plays Harrison Howell, the Gen. Douglas MacArthur type who is wooing Lilli. Wagner, last seen in the title role of Jekyll & Hyde, delivers a nice rendition of From This Moment On (not in the original show but added for the 1953 movie).
Kathleen Marshall's choreography is a notable element in this production, which swept the 2000 Tony Awards, and the tour has been cast with strong dancers, including the trio of Lucentio (Jim Newman), Gremio (Stephen Reed) and Hortensio (John D. Baker), who have acrobatic solos in Tom, Dick or Harry. There are times, though, when a bit less dancing would amount to more, as in the prolonged second-act opener, Too Darn Hot.
Because Kiss Me, Kate is so inventive and appealing in the first act, it's hard to keep up the momentum, and the story sort of falls apart after intermission. But whenever the attention starts to lag in this long show, along comes another Porter masterpiece.
Perhaps the greatest of them all is his brilliant piece of courtship advice, Brush Up Your Shakespeare. A pair of mobster-vaudevillians, played by Richard Poe and Michael Arkin, work a dizzying array of the Bard's play titles and characters and exclamations ("Forsooth!") into a smashing song and dance.
THEATER REVIEW Kiss Me, Kate has seven shows through Sunday at the Tampa Bay Performing Arts Center. Tickets: $23.50-$65.50. Call (813) 229-7827 or toll-free 1-800-955-1045. Web site: www.tbpac.org.