By Dan Shaw
Over the past few years, Barrington Stage Company (BSC) has set a high bar for its season-opening musical with indelible productions of Carousel, Sweeney Todd, Guys & Dolls and Fiddler on the Roof. Last year’s incendiary staging of On the Town — which New York Times critic Ben Brantley said had an “air of erotic effortlessness" — was so fresh and pitch perfect that it's being remounted on Broadway in September. With Cole Porter’s Kiss Me, Kate, BSC has taken another legendary show and given it an exhilarating revival worthy of the Great White Way. Kiss Me, Kate opens with a show-stopper — the iconic “Another Op’nin’, Another Show" — that’s sung so magnificently (especially by Nyla Watson) and danced so energetically that you’re reminded how far we’ve come from the days of “summer stock" in the Berkshires. Although the plot is about a second-rate touring company that’s arrived in Baltimore to perform a musical version of The Taming of the Shrew, the staging of the opening number assures us that we’re about to see a first-rate production of a classic.
Written just before the TV era of sitcoms and variety shows, Kiss Me, Kate is an old-fashioned musical that was designed as broad entertainment. It has something for everyone — witty repartee, slapstick, torch songs, acrobatic dance numbers and, of course, a lush score by Cole Porter that is given its due with BSC’s 12-piece orchestra under the baton of Darren R. Cohen. Good casting is good karma, and Elizabeth Stanley (as the diva Lilli Vanessi who plays Katherine in Shrew) and Mara Davi (as Lois Lane, the young actress with stars in her eyes who plays Bianca in Shrew) are — to paraphrase Porter — delightful and de-lovely. They each have a showstopper in Act One: Davi’s version of “Tom, Dick or Harry" has a feminist feistiness and is brilliantly choreographed by Lorin Latarro who fully exploits the dancing talents and romantic charms of Calvin Cooper, KC Fredericks, and Tyler Hanes. When Stanley comes in front of the curtain to perform “I Hate Men" (and turns into a proto-feminist number), she captivates the audience with her powerful voice and impeccable comedic acting. The men that bedevil them are played with roguish charm by Paul Anthony Stewart and Tyler Hanes.
Act Two opens with another showstopper as supporting player Matthew Bauman leads the cast in “Too Darn Hot," which captures all the pent-up desire ricocheting backstage in the pre-sexual revolution era; the choreography underscores the lyrics that mention the Kinsey Report and men who want to “blow my top with my baby tonight." And Davi’s version of “Always True to You in My Fashion" is a reminder that Porter famously and tastefully pushed boundaries within the confines of the Broadway musical. The evening’s final showstopper is the duet sung by the two gangsters who had to trade their pinstripe suits for Shakespearean costumes to try to collect on an IOU for their boss. “Brush Up Your Shakespeare" is a highfaluntin' vaudeville number that seems tailor-made for a Berkshires audience; it’s performed hilariously by Michael Dean Morgan and Carlos Lopez. One of the great pleasures of Kiss Me, Kate is hearing many of Porter’s standards performed in their original context but with 21st-century verve and vigor. Indeed, Barrington Stage Company’s Kiss Me, Kate is more than a revival, it’s a rejuvenation. Kiss Me, Kate (through July 12) Barrington Stage Company Boyd-Quinson MainStage 30 Union Street, Pittsfield, MA 413.236.8888
