THEATRE REVIEW: KISS ME, KATE
9 Jun'10

‘Kiss Me, Kate’ misses the mark

JOHN COULBOURN - QMI Agency
Rating: 2.5 out of 5

STRATFORD — When celebrated Broadway director John Doyle got the call from the Stratford Festival to come up to the wilds of Canada to direct a Cole Porter musical, he seems to have overlooked the fact that the musical in question was KISS ME, KATE — Porter’s celebrated musical adaptation of Shakespeare’s THE TAMING OF THE SHREW.

That might account for the fact that Doyle’s take on KATE, which opened on the Festival stage Tuesday, could more appropriately be titled ANYTHING GOES — which, tragically, is a reflection on Doyle’s staging rather than the celebrated Cole Porter musical of that name. In bringing KATE to life, Doyle and his team seem to have allowed very little to stand in the way of their vision. They waste precious little time and apparently even less energy in bringing the play-within-a-play envisioned by Porter and his playwrighting collaborators, Sam and Bella Spewack, to life. Instead they transform it into some sort of one-size-fits-all, play-within-a-play-within-a-concert.

“Why waste time on things like plot and character development?” Doyle seems to be asking, when there are a whole range of delicious songs such as Tom, Dick Or Harry, Too Darn Hot and So In Love to be sung — and choreographer Tracey Flye is standing by with a grab bag of great dance steps.

The script creates strong parallels in the relationship between the show’s two principals — leading man Fred Graham, played by Juan Chioran, and his ex-wife and leading lady Lilli Vanessi, played by Monica Lund — and the roles they are playing (Kate and Petruchio in a musical version of SHREW that’s trying out in Baltimore). Doyle obviously feels it’s a waste of precious resources to try to keep the two storylines separate in any way.

This is not to suggest Doyle has been wasting his time up here, so far from his Broadway home. In fact, he and his design team led by David Farley have devoted a lot of energy to transforming the Festival’s unique thrust stage into a traditional proscenium, in order to avoid all the elaborate staging problems that have so long plagued directors here. And they’ve done it, even though it’s likely to be a thankless task, particularly for anyone not seated dead centre in the theatre’s wrap-around house. Doyle’s success can surely be measured in the amount of action missed by all those foolish people in the seats to either side of dead centre. Sadly, it hasn’t left him with much time to devote to his cast, leaving his talented players to labour largely on their own, arrayed either in their underwear or costumes that seem to be the dregs from a Muppets convention.

Happily, Chioran’s experience in MAN OF LA MANCHA serves as a fallback position, while Lund seems to be relying heavily on either LA CAGE AUX FOLLES or PRISCILLA for her inspiration. In supporting roles, Chilina Kennedy finds a happy place somewhere between GUYS AND DOLLS’ Miss Adelaide and a SWEET CHARITY chorus girl, which roles inform her take on Lois Lane/Bianca. As Bill Calhoun/Lucentio, Mike Jackson channels SEVEN BRIDES FOR SEVEN BROTHERS. As the petty criminals who show up to menace everyone, Steve Ross and Cliff Saunders get so deeply into their roles they steal almost the whole show, although in fairness, thanks to Doyle’s touch, it amounts to little more than petty larceny.

Totally devoid of subtlety or nuance, largely unmarked in any way by the story it is trying to tell and unrestrained by any reverence for either the music or the text from which it arises, Doyle’s production nonetheless is a crowd pleaser. Unless, of course, that crowd came to see KISS ME, KATE, in which case one should just kiss that dream goodbye.