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Kiss Me, Kate
Victoria Palace Theatre 2001-02

This revival of Cole Porter's 1948 musical is a polished and professional Broadway package, and if that means that it occasionally seems to operate on autopilot, the times it comes alive should more than make up for the by-the-numbers stretches.

The premise of the book by Sam and Bella Spewack has a divorced couple of actors performing in a musical of The Taming of the Shrew, with their backstage bickering and obvious attraction mirroring the Shakespearean action. This was enough to give Cole Porter (who was famously not interested in the plots of his shows - "How many love songs do you need? How many comic songs?") room for everything from the mock-operatic "Wunderbar" and the energetic "Too Darn Hot" (both of which sound like they came out of his trunk) to the witty and pertinent "Always True to You (In my Fashion)" and "Brush Up Your Shakespeare."

The four featured performers all come from the current Broadway production (though they weren't all in the original cast). Marin Mazzie sings beautifully and moves with authority as the shrew-actress, and displays an unexpected flair for comedy in "I Hate Men." Brent Barrett has a boyish charm that is not quite right for the shrew-taming husband, but is still very attractive.

As is sometimes the case in musicals, the comic second leads steal the show (It's noteworthy that it is they, and not the stars, who are shown on the posters). As the flighty starlet playing Bianca, Nancy Anderson combines the elfin sexiness of Bernadette Peters with real man-eating energy, and her take-no-prisoners rendition of "Always True to You" stops the show - though, by including every encore verse Porter wrote, it may outstay its welcome just a bit. Michael Berresse as her love interest really only comes into his own in the late and relatively little-known song "Bianca," which climaxes with some injury-defying acrobatics.

Teddy Kempner and Jack Chissick have fun with the comic gangsters who wander into the plot and find themselves playing Shakespeare, while Nolan Frederick gets his moment leading the big production number "Too Darn Hot."

Michael Blakemore's direction is merely serviceable, and Kathleen Marshall's choreography, despite repeatedly quoting Bob Fosse, is rarely more than rudimentary, with even "Too Darn Hot" taking far too long to get beyond tepid. Still, it is - as my companion said - a nice, big, brassy, brainless Broadway musical and they quite literally don't make them like that anymore.

Gerald Berkowitz

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Review - Kiss Me Kate - Victoria Palace 2001