Cole Porter’s ‘play-within-a-play’
Kiss Me Kate, based on Shakespeare’s
The Taming of the Shrew,
opened on Broadway in 1948 and it was
one of the first musicals to have over
1,000 performances. In 1953, M-G-M released
a highly successful film version with
Howard Keel and Kathryn Grayson in the
lead roles and dancing star Anne Miller
with Keenan Wynn and James Whitmore
as the two gangsters who brilliantly,
wittily advised the ‘fellas’ to ‘Brush
up your Shakespeare’.
While this London stage
production certainly has its moments,
it cannot compare with the classic M-G-M
film nor, I feel sure, with the original
Broadway production that starred Patricia
Morrison and Alfred Drake.
Brent Barrett is very
good as Fred Graham/Petruchio, debonair,
chauvinistic
and a real cad; and almost as convincing
as Howard Keel. His voice has an
attractive timbre and he is as characterful
in his patter songs ‘Where is
the life that late I led’ and ‘I’ve
come to wife it wealthily in Padua’
as
he is tenderly romantic when he woos
his ‘lost’ Lili in surely
one of Cole
Porter’s loveliest ballads, ‘So
in love with you’. This is more
than I can
say for the singing of Rachel York in
her earlier rendition of this number.
Why does she have to stoop to mauling
the lyrics of this beautiful song in
the modern manner and in so doing swerve
off key so depressingly? (bring
back Kathryn Grayson!). Mind you York
makes a splendid virago especially in
her scenery-chewing ‘I hate men!’
The vivacious Anne Miller as Lois
Lane/Bianca in the film far outshone
a rather underpowered Nancy Anderson
in
this production. Dancer/singer Michael
Anderson is smooth as silk as Bill
Calhoun, Lois’s beau. The show-stopper
‘Brush up your Shakespeare’
has less
sparkle and wit than in the film here
and the intonation of the two
gangsters (Teddy Kempner and Jack Chissick)
is at times incomprehensible.
Costumes are colourful
and the sets are good and imaginative
particularly in contrasting front and
back stage settings but the lighting
at times is weak and underpowered.
For those Cole Porter
fans who are content with just an audio
realisation of this musical, I can enthusiastically
recommend the EMI 2 CD set (CDS 7 54033
2 in UK; CDCB 54033 in USA) released
in 1990 that starred Josephine Barstow
and Thomas Hampson.
A variable but mostly
enjoyable production; I recommend you
seek out a video of the wonderful 1953
M-G-M film version.
Ian Lace
Frederick C. Graham…Brent Barrett 
TDK
DVD DV-MCKMK [146 mins]