Reviews 2004
Reviews 2004
✭✭✭✩✩
by Cole Porter, directed by Anne Allan
Stratford Festival, Avon Theatre, Stratford
June 6-October 31, 2004
"Not Quite De-Lovely"
“Anything Goes”, Cole Porter’s hit musical from 1934, featuring a string of classic songs, tap dancing and a book by P.G. Wodehouse and Guy Bolton, is a delightful confection. Like whipped cream it needs a light touch and a director who knows when to stop before it turns to butter. Anne Allan, director/choreographer of Stratford’s current production, has not stopped beating quite in time so that a sodden feeling has crept in to undermine this frothiest of musicals.
Stratford is not presenting the original “Anything Goes” but the version used for the 1987 Lincoln Center revival. This has a new book by Timothy Crouse and John Weidman and adds four songs to the score, most notably the classics “It’s De-Lovely” and “Friendship”. Crouse and Weidman rev up the plot twists in this zany farce set on an ocean liner to Marx Brothers proportions. In brief, Billy Crocker has pursued his beloved Hope Harcourt onto the S.S. American to tell her he loves her and dissuade her from marrying British toff Lord Evelyn Oakleigh. When the ship sets sail he finds himself on board without ticket or passport and so is forced to assume a number of disguises to avoid detection by the crew and his own boss Elisha Whitney. In this he is helped by his friend nightclub singer Reno Sweeney and another stowaway, Public Enemy #13 Moonface Martin.
In the Stratford production one senses things are not quite right as soon as the overture begins. Music director Berthold Carrière drives the music much too hard and continues to race through the numbers until the end. This may be an attempt to conjure up the manic, breathless pace of 1930s screwball comedies, but it has a negative effect on some of Porter’s most famous songs. “You’re the Top”, “Friendship” and “Anything Goes” have some of the wittiest lyrics ever written for Broadway, yet Carrière’s speeds don’t allow enough time for the clever rhymes to register much less for the audience to react. Just compare Porter’s own recording of these songs or the 1987 cast recording and benefits of slower tempi become immediately apparent. Fast speeds also rob numbers like “Easy to Love” and “It’s De-Lovely” of the sensuousness needed to establish the love between Billy and Hope.
Similarly, director Allan has encouraged self-conscious, look-at-me-I’m-funny performances from the cast in a show that doesn’t need any boosting and is only harmed by it. The worst offender is New York import Jimmy Spadola as Moonface Martin who mugs his way through the show playing almost entirely to the audience. The sad sack, low energy approach of Bill McCutcheon in the 1987 New York production was both funnier and more endearing. Another New York import, Michael Gruber as Billy, seems more in love with himself and the audience than with anyone on stage. Though he sings and dances well, the comedy of an ordinary guy forced into one extraordinary situation after the other is lost when Billy is made slick and overconfident.
As for the Ethel Merman role of Reno Sweeney, there is a problem of another kind. Try as she might to act sexy and talk tough, Cynthia Dale is never convincing. She seems like a Girl Scout playing at Mae West, not the real thing. Her voice doesn’t have the bite to it to bring off songs like “Anything Goes” or especially the big nightclub number “Blow, Gabriel, Blow”. It’s easy to see why someone would want to sing the string of classics Porter gives Reno, but Dale, suffering from Julie Andrews syndrome, is just not the right person to do it.
Fortunately, the casting problems end there. Douglas Chamberlain is a treat as the Wall Street tycoon Whitney in vain romantic pursuit of Hope’s mother Evangeline, played with equal relish by Patricia Collins. As Hope, Elizabeth DeGrazia has a lovely cultured soprano. If Carrière would let her songs breathe more, she could provide the romantic core the show needs to ground all the manic goings-on. Laird Mackintosh gives his best ever performance at Stratford as Lord Evelyn Oakleigh. While he could stand to tone down the British twit act a notch, he shows a flair for physical comedy and timing that makes the hilarious “Gypsy In Me” one of the highlights of the show. The talented Sheila McCarthy is sadly relegated to the small part of Erma, Moonface’s confederate, but she makes the most of her one number “Buddy, Beware”.
Patrick Clark has designed a two-tier set of the ship’s deck very much like that used in the New York production. With a couple exceptions he is much more creative with the women’s costumes. Why is DeGrazia given a gown that does not flow as well as the four women who mirror her dance in “Easy to Love”? Why is McCarthy, whose Erma is supposed to be such a sexpot, given a wig and outfits that are so unflattering?
Finally, in a Stratford musical we have tap numbers where the dancers actually use tap shoes. Tap moves without the taps are all very nice, but the tap sound itself is the marker of precision. As choreographer, Allan pulls out so many stops for the big tap number to the title song in the Act 1 finale, it’s truly thrilling, but we wonder if she’s left anything in reserve. As it turns out, she hasn’t. Except for the gimmicky but very funny “Gypsy In Me” in Act 2, she seems to have exhausted her invention in Act 1.
The average theatre-goer will hardly mind the show’s various flaws. Cole Porter songs plus tap dancing equals a mood lift no matter what. Yet, it’s easy to see that with some key cast changes and a more stylish directorial approach, this frothy show could have much more delectable, delirious and de-lovely.
©Christopher Hoile
Note: This review is a Stage Door exclusive.
Photo: Jimmy Spadola and Cynthia Dale. ©2004 David Hou.
2004-06-11
Anything Goes