‘Cole’ Will Make Fans of Porter Palpitate

It’s safe to assume that if you’re planning to catch “Cole,” Alan Strachan and Benny Green’s musical revue at the newly renamed Lonny Chapman’s Group Repertory Theatre, you already like Cole Porter.

Maybe it’s Porter’s lightly elegant romantic ballads. Maybe it’s Porter’s comic, nearly satiric tunes, such as “Anything Goes.” Maybe it’s Porter’s lyrics and his limitless skill for rhyming and punning that made him a kind of American pop Shakespeare. Whatever the case, “Cole” appears to have a built-in demographic.

Still, it’s also safe to assume that a scan of the program, specifically the page listing the musical numbers, will make your heart palpitate. It’s here we see that “Cole” is a show with 43 Porter tunes, plus two reprises. This tells us that “Cole” will be comprehensive. It may also be just too much.

All this in a show in which director Dom Salinaro helms a 10-member ensemble and includes running narration of Porter’s heady, eventful life in Europe, on Broadway and in Hollywood. Sitting through what should be a light, bubbly show sounds more like handling heavy machinery.

“Cole” is indeed bloated, and badly needs trimming, but Cole’s fans will be fairly happy.

The giant song list is justified from the standpoint that Porter enjoyed a truly prolific career, even as--we’re reminded by the narration--he often feigned outward indifference to what he privately coveted: Broadway success.

The list covers his career, from early obscure tunes that he scribbled as a Yalie (“Bingo Eli Yale!”) to numbers from his first Broadway flop (“See America First”) and through a bevy of songs dedicated to his two favorite cities, Paris and New York. As he characteristically writes of Manhattan: “Its crazy skyline/Is right in my line.”

This section includes a production highlight in Dominick Morra belting out a propulsive “I Happen to Like New York,” which happens to show how much Porter was influenced by French songwriting.

In every performance aspect, however, this edition of Strachan and Green’s 1974 show is clearly uneven. The ensemble lacks balance, so that there are leaders, like Morra and the ever-charismatic Shandi Sinnamon, and followers, like the off-key Madeleine Falk.

Some players are well-assigned, like Chris Winfield, an ideal, ultra-suave Porteresque narrator who mostly leaves the singing to others.

Other bits, like pairing short-statured but strong-voiced Mark Barrett with statuesque Beverly Jo Allen, are unintentionally comic. Salinaro did the choreography with producer Stan Mazin, and it’s fair to say that the pair should have farmed out a job they just can’t do. Kent’s own lead on piano accompaniment is inelegant and sometimes out of rhythm.

All of this can make “Cole” a bit of a chore, but the show’s second half zips through more than a dozen tunes in Porter’s prime: “Begin the Beguine,” the brilliant lyrics of “You’ve Got That Thing” and the definitively romantic “In the Still of the Night.”

They are followed by two strong duo turns from Barrett and Beverly Allen duplicating Gene Kelly and Judy Garland’s “Be a Clown” act from Vincente Minnelli’s “The Pirate.” Morra and Winfield articulate a crisp “Brush Up Your Shakespeare” from “Kiss Me Kate,” which Strachan and Green label as Porter’s masterpiece.

Could be, though this “Cole” is no masterpiece of the musical revue. It reminds us why Porter was a one-of-a-kind mix of champagne and craft.

BE THERE

“Cole,” Lonny Chapman’s Group Repertory Theatre, 10900 Burbank Blvd., North Hollywood. Fridays-Saturdays, 8 p.m.; Sundays, 3 p.m. Dark Dec. 20-Jan. 6. Ends Jan. 22. $10. (818) 769-7529. Running time: 2 hours, 20 minutes.