Stage Review: Cast adds new luster to Cole Porter classic
“Another Op’nin’, Another Show….” But not just any show. This is Cole Porter’s 1948 masterwork, “Kiss Me, Kate,” and it fairly zings with exuberance at the Pasadena Playhouse.
Taking his inspiration from classic material adapted for all-black casts in the 1930s (“Swingin’ the Dream,” a musical “Midsummer Night’s Dream”; Orson Welles’ “Voodoo Macbeth”), director Sheldon Epps has concocted a jazz-infused “Kate” that serves up those great Cole Porter songs — “So in Love,” “Too Darn Hot,” “Always True to You in My Fashion,” the iconic “Another Op’nin’ “ and more — with vibrant immediacy and an appreciation for nuance.
“Kate” — it received the first Tony Award to be given for Best Musical — was created by Porter with writers Bella and Samuel Spewak around Shakespeare’s “The Taming of the Shrew.” In this smart show-within-a-show, it is 1948 and actor-director Fred is leading his theater company in a Baltimore tryout of his new production of “Shrew.” He plays Petruchio; ex-wife Lilli plays Kate, and underneath their surface acrimony, each still carries a torch for the other. Fred’s flirty girlfriend Lois and her real passion, Bill, are “Shrew’s” Bianca and Lucentio. Also in the mix: a pair of thugs intent on collecting on a gambling debt IOU, and Lilli’s stuffy, highly placed Washington fiancé. What plays out on stage during the company’s performance echoes what goes on behind the scenes.
Here, Fred’s company is the “American Negro Theatre,” and he and Lilli are leading a production of “Kiss Me, Kate, Swinging the Shrew,” with 16th-century costumes and a witty mix of Shakespearean dialogue, song and dance. Behind the scenes, more songs, more choreography, broad comedy and moments of reflection punctuate the plot.
In his performance as Fred/Petruchio, Emmy-winning Wayne Brady, host of “Let’s Make a Deal” and comic improv king of “Whose Line Is It Anyway?,” is a believable romantic lead, with an expressive, deep baritone (barring those times in the first act when perhaps opening night jitters flattened his pitch). Brady, who played Billy Flynn in “Chicago” on Broadway, and who released a debut song album in 2008, is quite dashing in fact, in his Petruchio leathers and boots. He will be even more so when he fully shakes off the Mr. Nice Guy likability of his TV persona that at times subverts the air of alpha male command and brio that he otherwise delivers quite handily.
As temperamental Lilli/Kate, Merle Dandridge combines full-throated, operatic regality with an unexpected gift for comedy — her rendition of “I Hate Men” is a hoot and although there is regrettably no noticeable fire between the two, she matches Brady’s prodigious comedic gifts in a hilarious back-and-forth when Fred and Lilli’s bickering spills over into their performances in “Shrew.” (Brady spins comic gold, too, out of Petruchio’s lascivious sighing over past conquests in “Where Is the Life That Late I Led?”)
Among other standout performances by this cast of talented pros:
Jenelle Lynn Randall as Lilli’s no-nonsense, bespectacled maid, Hattie. Randall, who impresses with rafter-raising vocals (over-miking lent a metallic quality to some high notes opening night), undergoes quite a transformation in a molten rendition of “Too Darn Hot” with singer-tapper Rogelio Douglas Jr. and the superb ensemble.
Joanna A. Jones nearly stops the show in her naughty-demure performances of “Tom, Dick and Harry” and “Always True to You in My Fashion”; Carlton Wilborn offers a sharply rendered Baptista, and Brad Blaisdell and David Kirk Grant are a kick as the stage-struck thugs who warm to the spotlight while mining the wacky wit of “Brush Up Your Shakespeare.”
Yes, the nut of the story is still problematic. Shakespeare’s route to feminine subservience in “Shrew” through humiliation and physical abuse is cringe-making, more so in the wake of recent headlines. It remains awkward here even in this sparkling romp, although at least the paddling scene is only glimpsed as the curtain descends.
But despite the bumps, this is one of the freshest and sexiest “Kates” you’re likely to see, thanks to Epps, his fine cast, deft music director/conductor Rahn Coleman, Jeffrey Polk’s spicy choreography and the superlative design team (note-perfect set by John Iacovelli, sumptuous costumes by David K. Mickelsen, and deft lighting and sound by Jared A. Sayeg and Jon Gottlieb, respectively).
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LYNNE HEFFLEY writes about theater and culture for Marquee.
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Infobox
What: “Kiss Me, Kate”
Where: Pasadena Playhouse, 39 S. El Molino Ave., Pasadena.
When: 8 p.m. Tuesday through Friday; 4 and 8 p.m. Saturday; 2 and 7 p.m. Sunday. Ends Oct. 12.
Tickets: $57 to $145.
More info: (626) 356-7529, www.pasadenaplayhouse.org