'Kiss Me, Kate':
Great musical, well done
By Marcus Crowder -- Bee Theater Critic
Rachel York and Rex Smith, foreground, are the stars of a fine production of
Cole Porter's "Kiss Me, Kate," which runs through Sunday at the Community Center
Theater.
California Musical Theatre's Broadway Series presentation of "Kiss Me, Kate,"
which opened Tuesday, is a terrifically funny, tuneful and sexy lark.
Who else but Cole Porter would have had the sense of humor and the daring to rhyme "If she says your behavior is heinous/Kick her right in the 'Coriolanus'?" Porter's great wit and tuneful music are on display at the Community Center Theater this week in a terrific touring production of his 1948 musical.
Assured performances from
Rachel York and Rex Smith as Lilli Vanessi and Fred Graham, the divorced but
enmeshed couple of the play-within-a-play story, buoy the memorable material.
York's elegance is supported by her clear soprano voice, while Smith shows himself
a superior singer and comic actor with a great sense of timing. Smoothly tying
elements together are Michael Blakemore's keen, Tony Award-winning direction,
Kathleen Marshall's sensuous choreography and Don Sebesky's fluid orchestrations.
"Kiss Me, Kate" won the first Tony Award for best musical when it opened on
Broadway. The 1999 revival won five Tonys, including Blakemore's, and it's that
production that is currently touring the nation.
Sam and Bella Spewack's book places the story backstage at the Baltimore tryout
for a musical based on Shakespeare's "Taming of the Shrew." Smith's Fred Graham
is the director and producer of the play, in which he also stars as Petruchio
alongside his ex-wife (York) as Katharine. Though she's now engaged to a high-ranking
military officer, and he's chasing the flirty younger co-star of the show, Lois
Lane, they still have romantic issues with each other. Their personal offstage
encounters hilariously spill over onstage to the Katharine-Petruchio sexual
battle royal of "Shrew."
A similar romantic skirmish involves Jenny Hill as Lois Lane/Bianca and her
suitor, Bill Calhoun, who plays Lucentio in the "Shrew" segments. Hill's Lane
is a libidinous hoofer while Calhoun is a gambler who can't win. After Calhoun
goes $10,000 in debt to gamblers and signs Graham's name on an IOU, the farcical
plot takes off.
Jim Newman usually plays Calhoun, but understudy Steven Reed was in the role
at Tuesday night's opening. Reed had a nimble gymnastic set-climbing excursion
on his spotlight number, "Bianca."
While the singing is first-rate throughout the show, Porter's incomparable songs remain the reason this is such an outstanding work. Coming near the end of Porter's career, this score was proof he could still write with the best of Broadway's tunesmiths.
His introductory piece, "Another Op'nin' Another Show," not only sets the backstage world of "Kate" but is cleverly specific musically to each entrance of a principal. Lane and Calhoun follow with the comic duet "Why Can't You Behave?" as she scolds him for his continual gambling. York shows her versatility with a radiant reading of the ballad "So in Love," followed later by the spectacular rant "I Hate Men." Porter shows off his wit and Smith his comic chops with "I've Come to Wive it Wealthily in Padua," which he sings as Petruchio from the "Shrew" musical. The show's highlight-filled second half opens with Randy Donaldson, as Graham's dresser, leading the ensemble through "Too Darn Hot," Porter's explanation of why certain activities can't be performed. Sebesky's jazzy arrangement smartly extends the music for an enthusiastic dance interlude.
Hill is appropriately sexy in the salacious "Always True to You (In My Fashion)" and Chuck Wagner as Gen. Harrison Howell displays a powerful baritone in "From This Moment On." But the comic topper is "Brush Up Your Shakespeare," sung by Michael Arkin and Richard Poe, the two gangsters who've come to retrieve the gambling debt rung up by Calhoun in Graham's name. Porter's creative rhyming and inclusion of various Shakespearean references is outrageously funny, and the duo's deadpan performance is marvelous.
This "Kiss Me, Kate" delivers just about all one could want in an evening of musical theater.
Kiss Me, Kate 4 stars
The California Musical Theatre's Broadway Series production continues at 2 and
8 p.m. Jan. 30, 8 p.m. Feb. 1, 2 and 8 p.m. Feb. 2, and 2 p.m. Feb. 3 (last
show) in the Community Center Theater, 1301 L St. $10-$65. Running time: 2 hours,
50 minutes, including one intermission. (916) 264-5181 or (916) 557-1999.