Kiss Me Kate is Revived Right

I was skeptical about a revival of Kiss Me Kate. It is a fairly sexist show based on a very sexist play. It probably did not seem sexist or questionable when first performed. Both Shakespeare’s Taming of the Shrew and Porter’s Kiss Me Kate are classics, but they are problematic in their treatment of women. Somehow director Scott Ellis has put together a fun, massively entertaining, high spirited show that manages to avoid the stereotypes that inhabit both pieces. This Kiss Me Kate glides effortlessly through and around the problems, while preserving the energy and excitement of the original. 

The company gets Too Darn Hot

The plot of the show is a device to hang some magical Cole Porter songs on. A theater is putting on Taming of the Shrew. The show within a show stars Lilli Vanessi (Kelli O’Hara) and Fred Graham (Will Chase) a formerly married couple. They are still in love - which is obvious to the audience, if not the couple involved. The secondary couple in Shrew, Bianca and Lucentino are played by Lois (Stephanie Styles) and Bill (Corbin Blue), a couple who are dating and still in the discovery phase.

Kelli O’Hara’s voice is enthralling, and she is given full voice in most of the numbers. This brings new heartbreak to So In Love and an adult’s hesitancy to I Hate Men. Will Chase is no match for her voice-wise, no one is, and instead brings an adult perspective and weariness to his numbers Where Is The Life That Late I Led and So In Love.

If that were all that was great here, I could highly recommend Kiss Me Kate, but this revival shines far beyond these two. The ensemble numbers stand out with amazing voices and dancing. Adrienne Walker steals Another Op’nin’, Another Show and James T. Lane leads the ensemble in bringing the audience to their feet in Too Darn Hot.

Corbin Blue, more mature than you might remember, tears up the floor, the stairs, the railings and a ceiling dancing and tapping through Bianca. And Stephanie Styles blazes through Always True to You in My Fashion with a lot of stage business to cover the rather mercurial morals of the song. Only Brush Up on Your Shakespeare falls a little flat, and only due to repeated repetition. 

Corbin Blue tears it up

 

Amanda Green is credited with the additional material, and her material turns the show from a relic that one is a bit embarrassed to enjoy, into a flat out fun study of the growth of love in both sexes. Admirably directed by Scott Ellis, who has experience with revivals like She Loves Me and You Can’t Take It With You, this production playfully pulls you in.

Kiss Me Kate

Music and Lyrics: Cole Porter | Book: Sam and Bella Spewack | Additional Material: Amada Green | Director: Scott Ellis | Cast: Kelli O’Hara, Will Chase, Corbin Blue, Stephanie Styles, Adrienne Walker, James T. Lane, John Pankow, Terence Archie, Mel Johnson Jr., Lance Coadie Williams

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Kelli O'Hara and Will Chase ignoring each other

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Hands on a Hardbody Is a Great Surprise

The cast of Hands on a Hardbody

The story behind Hands on a Hardbody doesn’t immediately suggest a musical.  It is the story of a competition in West Texas where a dozen people vie to see who can keep one hand on a new truck the longest.  The winner takes home the truck.  The story became a documentary and now a musical.  Along with its East Texas setting and strong accents, it opens as if it might be a parody of hick stereotypes.  But Hands has something else on its mind.  It evokes a new recession version of They Shoot Horses Don’t They, with all the pathos that suggests, but without the persistent bleakness.  It is a fun piece, with an constant undercurrent of reality.

 We are treated to the stories of the contestants, who see the truck as a reward for perseverance and a ticket to better things.  The automobile as a symbol of the American dream has a long history, retold to a new generation every year.  The winner, whoever it is, dreams of driving away from their current troubles; for some of them, escape is figurative but for others it is the thought of quite literally leaving small town Texas.

Jay Armstrong Johnson & Allison Case

The music that gives voice to these dreams is by Trey Anastasio (of Phish) and Amanda Green, lyrics by Ms. Green.  It is a broad sweep of styles including traditional Broadway along with country, folk and gospel.  Not all songs hit, but when they do, they soar.  Stronger and Joy of the Lord are two numbers that touched me, but there are a lot of great songs in this show.  The cast moves about surprisingly often, giving that they are often rooted to a truck (which swings and moves as much as anyone else).

Hands on a Hardbody is awash with local accents and colloquialisms, all carried well.  The show doesn’t make fun of these people, but exposes them and their dreams individually to the audience.  It stresses the commonality of experience and recession driven angst, despite the differences in location or economic status.

Filled with well-known names like Hutton Foster and Keith Carradine (who are both excellent), it was some lesser known members of the cast that made my throat catch.  Keala Settle plays a Latina mother with a strong faith in God.  She occasionally steals the show.  David Larsen and Jay Armstrong Johnson both turn in moving performances as young men on different paths - they look at the same truck and see salvation in different forms.  These 3 performers are lucky to get 3 excellent songs (Mr. Armstrong duets with the lovely and talented Allison Case).

Since it is a test of endurance, the energy begins to fade for a short while near the very end, but the play moves on and up quickly.  Book writer Doug Wright has created a nice level of tension that is expanded by the individual stories.  It explores the very American expectation that things will get better if you only work at it, but doesn't hide the ever-present possibility of failure.  And, how quickly Americans recover from it. Predestined outcomes often figure in Europe stories (star-crossed and doomed lovers, children paying for the sins of their parents or grandparents).  What Mr. Wright has done is take an American set of beliefs, things get better with perseverance and each set-back is temporary, and given them un-ironic voice in Hands on a Hardbody.

(facing) Keala Settle, Hutton Foster and David Carradine

Neil Pepe directs this group well.  Working with choreographer Sergio Trujillo, they have introduced plenty of movement and action into a piece that could easily have been static and boring.  Hands on a Hardbody is a very good show, uplifting without being sentimental.

Hands on a Hardbody

Music: Trey Anastanio and Amanda Green

Lyrics: Amanda Green

Book: Doug Wright

Director: Neil Pepe

Cast: Keith Carradine, Allison Case, Hunter Foster, Jay Armstrong Johnson, David Larsen, Jocob Ming-Trent, Kathleen Elizabeth Monteleone, Mary Gordon Murray, Jim Newman, Connie Ray, Jon Rua, Keala Settle, Dale Soules, Scott Wakefield, William Youmans

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