The Songs of Cole Porter

In connection with the Humboldt State University production of Kiss Me, Kate (October 2015), I researched and wrote background stories that seem appropriate for the archives at this site.  There's even more at HSU Stage and HSU Music, indexed under Kiss, Me Kate on both sites.

An aside 10/18: By one of those flashes of serendipity that's become a familiar part of immersing myself in a particular subject, on the night after seeing the premiere of the HSU production of Kiss Me, Kate I happened to see a completely unrelated old movie, or so it seemed.  It was the 1982 Evil Under the Sun, based on an Agatha Christie novel. (It's one of the Peter Ustinov ones.)  But the composer credited with the score was none other than Cole Porter.  It took place at a seaside hotel, and when late in the film Hercule Poirot examines the guest book, the names of Cole Porter and "Fred and Adele" (Fred Astaire and his sister, who were dancing partners on Broadway for years) could be seen. The story is set in about 1938, and thanks to my research into Mr. Porter, I could appreciate that the particular Cole Porter music used--mostly "Night and Day"--first heard in one of those Fred and Adele Broadway shows--"You're the Top," "Anything Goes" and "Begin the Beguine"were all written in the 1930s, before 1938, and so were historically accurate.   

Songs from Kiss Me, Kate like “Another Op’nin', Another Show,” “From This Moment On,” “Too Darn Hot” and others have had lives of their own, but one notable feature of Cole Porter tunes is that they nearly all were introduced in Broadway shows or Hollywood movies, sung by Fred Astaire, Ethel Merman, Jimmy Durante, Mary Martin, Frank Sinatra, Bing Crosby and Grace Kelly, among others.

 But his tunes (including “Don’t Fence Me In,” “I Love Paris,” “Night and Day,” “My Heart Belongs to Daddy,” “I’ve Got You Under My Skin” and “True Love” as well as “Begin the Beguine,” “Let’s Do It,” “Anything Goes” and “You’re the Top”) were kept alive through recording and reinterpretations by several generations of singers.

These range from Billie Holiday, Louis Armstrong, Sarah Vaughan and Ella Fitzgerald through Elvis Presley, George Harrison, Natalie Cole, Elton John, Carly Simon and Celine Dion to U2, Annie Lennox, Elvis Costello, K.D. Laing, Alanis Morisette, Sheryl Crow and Diana Krall. Lady Gaga has recorded several Porter songs, and calls him one of her favorite composers.

Fred Astaire, Porter, Eleanor Powell
on set of Broadway Melody of 1940

Another notable feature of Cole Porter’s songs was that he wrote both lyrics and music. Along with Irving Berlin (Porter’s lifelong friend and supporter, who got him his first Broadway assignments), Cole Porter is exceptional among songwriters of his era in this regard.

 So while his lyrics are legendary, his music is strong enough to be recorded on its own, by big bands and jazz instrumentalists including Artie Shaw (who plucked “Begin the Beguine” out of a forgotten show and made it famous), Benny Goodman, Oscar Peterson, Bill Evans, Cannonball Adderley and Charlie Parker.

 Though Porter wrote songs or parts of songs and kept them “in the drawer” for possible future use, he tended to write pretty much to order for specific shows. This was especially true for Kiss Me, Kate, since it was his first show to integrate the songs so completely with the story.

original 1948 Broadway cast of Kiss Me, Kate

He could write quickly, as the four day weekend when he wrote three of the songs in this show, including “Another Op’nin’, Another Show.”

  But there was some trial and error involved.When the choreographer complained about one particular song, he dropped it and substituted “Too Darn Hot,” which the choreographer immediately loved because he could see it as a dance. Harold Lang, who played Bill/Lucentio in the original production, complained that his part wasn’t big enough and he didn’t even have a song. Porter wrote “Bianca” for him, pretty much on the spot, with cast members shouting out rhymes for "Bianca."

 Cole Porter wrote 23 to 25 songs for the show. Some were cut in rehearsals, but 17 remained. Kiss Me, Kate was so successful in its Philadelphia tryouts that no further songs were cut. In fact, a couple of choruses of “Brush Up Your Shakespeare” that had been dropped were added back.

Porter & Shakespeare

 Two of the songs in Kiss Me, Kate include lyrics by Shakespeare as well as Cole Porter: "I’ve Come to Wive It Wealthily in Padua” and “I Am Ashamed Women Are So Simple.” And despite the show’s title—Kiss Me, Kate—sounding like a snappy modernization, Petruchio actually speaks those words several times in The Taming of the Shrew. 

 Even though Porter had his doubts that a musical built around a Shakespeare play would attract Broadway theatregoers (something that potential backers also doubted), he seems to have found a kindred spirit in one aspect of the Bard’s comic writing: his use of wordplay, especially double entendres with sexual innuendo.

 Cole Porter was a past master of this himself, and it’s evident in this show in “Too Darn Hot” and “Always True to You in My Fashion,” for example. But Porter made the connection explicit in “Brush Up Your Shakespeare,” when he playfully turned titles of Shakespeare’s plays into sexual banter.

Song Lore

 There are stories about many of the songs, and they may even be true. 

“Wunderbar”: When Kiss Me, Kate was in early stages of preparation, the leading candidate to play the lead role of Lilli/Kate was opera star Jarmila Novotna. She was a social friend of Porter’s and one evening she brought a pianist with her to his apartment, who specialized in playing Viennese waltzes. When he finished she kept crying “Wunderbar! Wunderbar!” (“Wonderful!") The song by that title in the show is also a waltz.

"I Hate Men”: Several cast members told Patricia Morison, who ended up playing Lilli/Kate (see Kiss Me, Kate Meets Cinderella) that this song would embarrass her. It wasn’t going over in rehearsals. She mentioned her own misgivings to Porter, who remembered an operetta he’d seen in which the singer had emphasized a line by pounding his fist on a table. He suggested that she slam the metal tankard she was carrying. The effect worked so well that it was further emphasized by having her bang the tankard down on a couple of metal trays to make more noise. The song became a show-stopper.

 “Always True to You in My Fashion:” Cole Porter had that phrase of the title in his head but he couldn’t remember the source. The show’s writers, Bella and Sam Spewack, told him it was from a poem by Ernest Dowson, a late 19th century English poet and contemporary of Oscar Wilde who also contributed the phrase, “the days of wine and roses.” Porter’s song doesn’t bear much resemblance to this poem except for that repeated line of the title.

“Brush Up Your Shakespeare": Bella and Sam Spewack, who had worked with Porter before, were writing the script (“the book”) of Kiss Me, Kate. But at some point in creating this story about a couple having conflicts that bleed into the conflicts of the couple they are playing on stage, Bella and Sam themselves split up when Sam ran off with a ballerina.

 They’d split before, and would get back together again this time as well, but for awhile, Bella didn’t want to have anything to do with Sam. Sam’s major contribution to the story was the gangster subplot, and Bella was determined that it remain a small subplot, without a song involved.

 Unfortunately, Cole Porter came up with “Brush Up Your Shakespeare” for the two comic gangsters. When Bella recognized its quality—and guessed correctly that it would also be a show-stopper—she dropped her objections.

 “So In Love:” A song that Cole Porter said he’d intended for a movie musical, but was persuaded to use in Kiss Me, Kate. It was subsequently became a top 20 hit for Patti Page, Gordon McRae, Dinah Shore and Bing Crosby—all in the same year of 1949. More recently it’s been recorded by K.D. Laing.

Ann Miller in 1953 movie version

"From This Moment On":  It was common for songwriters to lift songs from other shows (especially those that didn’t do so well) but Kiss Me, Kate had a unique variation of this.

 The play itself had finished its run after two years, and a Hollywood film version was being prepared. At the same time, Porter had written songs for another Broadway show that had personnel problems, with the director being replaced. The new director threw out one of Porter’s songs, so it was never heard.

 But when the Kiss Me, Kate film producers asked Porter for another song, he gave them this rejected one. It was “From This Moment On,” now one of Porter’s all-time classics. This song was then included in the 1999 Broadway stage revival, and it’s been in Kiss Me, Kate ever since.

 “We Shall Never Be Younger:” This song was one of those cut from Kiss Me, Kate (because, according to Porter biographer William McBrien, “it reduced the audience to tears,” presumably at the wrong time.) It never made it into another show, nor was it published in Porter’s lifetime. But it, too, has had a life since, included in Porter songbooks and recorded by Bobby Short.

Los Pajaros and More on This North Coast Weekend

Update: It's the final weekend (Feb. 12-14) for Los Pajaros.  With Mother Teresa as Harpo, Dick Nixon as Groucho, it's the Marx Brothers meet Firesign Theatre, with a Latino edge.  The cast of 11 seems even bigger at times, so it's fascinating to recall that before this HSU production, the only performances were by the three members of Culture Clash. 

HSU Theatre is opening its major production for this school year on Thursday (Feb. 5) and it's something different for the North Coast.  It's Los Pajaros, a contemporary musical satire adapted by the Chicano American performance troupe Culture Clash from the play The Birds by Aristophanes, directed by Del Arte's Michael Fields, and featuring a Tim Randles band playing salsa, blues, gospel and rock & roll.

What's different is the Latino voice and perspective, in the Culture Clash script and as carried out by a largely bilingual HSU student cast.  The production recognizes the growing Latino population in Humboldt County and within the HSU student body, while adopting and adapting a comedic approach that's as old as theatre in western civilization.  That's pretty exciting.

So even if local media is waiting a week to review this play, it's worth saying that it opens this weekend and runs for only one more: Thursdays through Saturdays, February 5-7 and 12-14 at 7:30 p.m. with a 2 p.m. matinee on Saturday February 14 in the Van Duzer Theatre.

  There's a lot more information at HSU Stage & Screen.  I usually have my complete say there, as production publicist.  But once in awhile I need to add a little emphasis when it may not be getting through otherwise.  (If you read the Journal you won't even get that link to information.  In what looks very much like deliberate pettiness, they've excised every mention of a web page link to this weekend's HSU theatre and music productions.)

Not that this is going to be a regular thing here anymore, but here's a couple of other events this weekend:

Arcata Playhouse hosts The Uncomfortables Tour, a spoken word event featuring Billy Tuggle (aka Karma Threesixty, from Chicago) and Wil Gibson from Maine, plus special guests. It's happening Thursday (Feb. 5) at 7 p.m.  There's a free workshop earlier that afternoon at 4 p.m. 707-822-1575.

First years at the Dell'Arte School present their annual Commedia dell'Arte Show  Thursday, Friday and Saturday Feb. 5-7 at 8 p.m. in the Carlo.

HSU: The Forbidden Stage

"Humboldt Unbound"

Commentaries and reviews of productions by HSU Theatre are conspicuously few on this site. There is a reason. As I’ve written too many times here already, I began my theatre column for the North Coast Journal at pretty much the same time as I began writing publicity for HSU Theatre. Both employers accepted the same condition, which I proposed: that I would not review HSU productions in my Journal column. My agreement with the Journal had an additional component: that the Journal would still cover HSU productions as they did everyone else’s.

 In a better or even what used to be a normal world, I wouldn’t need to write for both employers. One of them would supply a full time job. But this is the North Coast, now. Even together, these two supposedly part time jobs didn’t add up to anything close to a living wage. Situations like this aren’t uncommon here, which is why in some ways this might be the state capital of conflict of interest, if Sacramento and Los Angeles didn’t exist. And they do it bigger there.

 This initial condition was in response to the operating definition of conflict of interest, which is probably not well understood. It doesn’t have much to do with reviewing people you know, including close relatives. You’re better off disclosing the close relationships, but if I had to note everybody I knew or worked with in another capacity, the reviews eventually would have gotten extremely long.

"The School for Scandal" at HSU

And that’s not only because this is a small place, and a small theatre community. All theatre communities, even in New York, are pretty small. But it isn't about that (though maybe it should be.) No, it has to do with who pays you.

 Even then it can be a sometime thing—national political pundits and reporters that work for several competing print, media and online purveyors, while maintaining friendships and business relationships with people they cover, being an obvious case in point, with a whole lot more money involved.

 So I couldn’t review HSU shows in the Journal because HSU had paid me to publicize their existence. And the absence of a financial conflict is presumably why the Journal now publishes reviews of HSU shows by an HSU theatre student. (Because the money goes the other way I suppose.) Or for that matter, of shows in any local theatre by someone who has acted and directed for that theatre, and hopes to in the future.  But at least HSU shows are now reviewed there.

Venus at HSU

 I recognized however that this ban protected me as well as my employers.  The problems arose when the Journal failed to keep their end of the bargain. In my nearly 9 years as columnist, the Journal reviewed exactly one HSU show. If I didn’t get a few paragraphs of preview into a column, there would be nothing. But HSU shows were as much a part of the theatre ecology here as anyone’s.

 Since I wasn’t bound by anything but my conscience in what I wrote for this site, I had my say here about some of the productions, both good and bad. In terms of background, I wrote a lot for the blog site I started for the Theatre, Film & Dance department (HSU Stage & Screen) that I would have written here. So check the index over there (sorry, the “labels”) and see if there are particular plays and playwrights you’d like to read about.  Many do.  The site (like this one) gets visitors from all over the world.

 A retrospective about a decade of North Coast theatre would not be complete without noting such HSU productions as Hater and Humboldt Unbound (both directed by Michael Fields), The School for Scandal (directed by Clint Rebik), Translations (directed by Bernadette Cheyne, with Bob Wells), Brigadoon,  Helen, M. Butterfly ( directed by Michael Thomas), Fat Pig, Shakuntala, Some Assembly Required, The Winter’s Tale, Cloud 9, The Marriage of Bette and Boo, Venus, An Evening with Rumi and Relative Captivity (Full disclosure! Written by my partner, Margaret Thomas Kelso) and several I’ve mentioned in earlier retrospective pieces, like Mother Courage, The Homecoming and Salmon Is Everything.

"Helen" at HSU

Many of these shows would not be produced by other North Coast theatres, so in addition to the educational goals they address, they offer audiences a variety, and at their best, either something daringly contemporary or an illuminating classic.  Some were very good, some were partly good, many were interesting, a few were really bad.  Like everybody else.

 Unfortunately, the fortunes of HSU theatre have fallen in recent years. Budget cutbacks threatened the very existence of the department a few years ago, but it still struggles against death by a thousand cuts. The loss of all graduate programs and the shrinking of the theatre faculty with the resulting weaknesses in vital areas have deeply wounded it.

 This diminution is already felt on other local stages. As I’ve argued before, HSU is a generator of talent and a source of support that helps make the relative plenitude of North Coast theatre possible. With the much smaller CR theatre program gone completely, it’s the last post-high school source of education and talent. (As an international school in a specialized area, Dell’Arte School is a special case-- most of its students don’t participate elsewhere and don’t hang around.)

"Shakuntala" at HSU

 The future is far from settled, but there is a vector getting stronger, a high school to community theatre express, often doing the same plays from one to the other (mostly the same musicals.)

 I’ll end this with a column from my first year that’s about the then-vibrant HSU 10 Minute Play Festival. I note the “full disclosure” elements in it, but it is a case in which the personal and the larger picture come together. I came here with Margaret when she was hired to run the dramatic writing program at HSU. It was robust in 1996, and a big part of HSU’s theatrical identity, especially with its national new plays contest.

 Over the years, as the department and the university faced one crisis after another, the writing program started to fade. The new plays contest was weakened. There was a staged reading of The Fire-Bringer in 2008, a different kind of "theatre of place." The last full production of a winning play was Jagun Fly in 2009 which I noted as a North Coast rarity then—a play by a black playwright about black people with an all-black cast.  But after that it lacked the resources to continue.

A program for new writing in the university itself was the 10 Minute Play Festival in the spring. It was a very popular show with audiences, especially student audiences, as well as with participants—many wrote and otherwise worked on the Festival more than once, and I noted in 2010 that one student, who did both undergrad and graduate work at HSU, participated in five of these annual festivals. (Here is the link to the posts I did at HSU Stage on the last 5 Festivals, and another to a blog about a few earlier ones.)

"Jagun Fly" at HSU

 But the festival was the result of a year-long graduate course process, and without graduate students, it wasn’t tenable. Margaret started the Festival, beginning in classrooms, then as a free event until it became a big draw on the regular schedule.  She coordinated all but the last two.

It ended with the 14th Festival in 2012. Few people noticed, which is the way that worlds end here—not with a bang but a whimper. Or the next text message.

 At their best, the festivals showcased energy and new perspectives.  Sometimes there was a gem or two, and sometimes that odd phenomenon of a year in which most of them were sort of amazing.  I still remember one play on one of the good years-- back when they were in the basement black box of Gist Hall-- about life, the future, and Star Wars: The New Hope. It was funny, theatrical, heartfelt and expressed a different perspective from a new generation. Those were 10 minutes worth waiting for.

 Even though the festival was restricted to HSU students, it was the last public forum or mechanism for new plays here, even ten minutes long. (I don’t count the 24 hour play contests, which are fun but mostly a game, a gimmick.) Now there are none.

From Page to Stage: The Ten Minute Year
 April 2006

Margaret Thomas Kelso

As the academic year ends, students at area high schools, Dell'Arte, CR and Humboldt State are presenting the fruits of their learning in theatre, music and dance on public stages. Perhaps the most complete exercise in creating new theatre will be the culmination of a year-long process, when the eighth annual Festival of Ten Minute Plays at HSU begins this weekend.

 I am now honor-bound to say that Margaret Thomas Kelso, the originator and coordinator of this event, and the head of the HSU Dramatic Writing Program, is also my partner. But that's just scratching the surface of journalistic disclosure. We actually met at a theatre conference held in conjunction with the Carnegie Mellon Showcase of New Plays. We both had ten-minute plays produced as members of a playwrights group in Pittsburgh, and Margaret directed a short play I wrote, with two wonderful CMU student actors (including Maduka Steady, who's since had a New York theatre career and a prominent role in the feature film Lorenzo's Oil).

2006 Ten Minute Playwrights

Here's how the process works at HSU: Students in advanced and beginning playwriting courses in the fall term write ten-minute plays, talk about them, and rewrite them several times.

 Around Thanksgiving, faculty members select scripts for the festival (nine this year) and those students continue working on them in the spring term. In the middle of the semester, directors are matched with scripts and actors audition, and writers keep working on scripts through rehearsals.

There is some staging and lighting for performance, but only what's essential to express the material. This playwright-centered process was pioneered at the Eugene O'Neill Center in Connecticut. One of the great experiences of my life was observing how it worked for several weeks one summer, and becoming part of that temporary yet recurrent and close-knit community. Spending hours talking and hanging out with August Wilson, one of the greatest of American playwrights, and Lloyd Richards, a legendary director and the Zen Master of the O'Neill Center, as well as meeting young playwrights who have since become important figures in theatre, television and film, only begins to suggest the privilege of that experience.

 But I definitely learned the value and integrity of a process that's centered on the playwright and the play, but with contributions from everyone. Because plays are not meant to stay on the page. It takes many people with different skills to make the leap: the director, searching for a shape and structure, designers who need to know how it should look and actors who have to be those words and actions.

 At its best, the questions confronting the playwright lead to moments like this: August Wilson had a character, a white Chicago cop, say something the actor playing him didn't think a Chicago cop would say. "What would he say?" August asked him. "Something like, `Look buddy, if you want it in a nutshell... '" Check the printed text of Ma Rainey's Black Bottom, and that line is there.

At HSU, the festival playwrights go through a similar process. "They have the opportunity to see their plays in three dimensions. They see their characters actually embodied," Kelso said. But the emphasis at all times is on the script: How it works to make the magic. "This is the heart of the process, and why it is so important. These are the essential skills that are needed to keep theatre alive. We need theatre that is still growing and reflecting our lives."

The final step is performance and the response of audiences, who get to participate in the creation of something new, and see what's on the minds of students this year. And if they don't like the one they're watching, they can wait ten minutes for another.

 There's usually a mix of comedy and drama, realism and fantasy, as there appears to be this spring. Even the styles can say something different each year: the festival a few years back featured some dull dramas but exhilarating comedies -- that class had a real feel for comedy in performance as well as writing.

The ten minute play is a fairly new and still evolving form, which at its best "captures a peak moment," Kelso said. "It's usually the moment of change in a story."

"Free" 2007

She uses this form for teaching purposes because all the reexamining and rewriting would be too unwieldy with plays of greater length. "But it's an excellent way for students to really work through the process," Kelso said. "A lot of universities don't teach these skills."

One of this year's writers showed me several drafts of his play, and it's fascinating to see how much can be improved in such a short form. Writers also don't get this kind of respect for their work very often, which is why even established playwrights loved the O'Neill. Margaret is proud of this program at HSU, and so am I.

Jean (and John) and the Northcoast Prepsters

set for Light on the Piazza

Jean Heard Bazemore began directing theatre on the North Coast in 1969.  She directed and taught at HSU until the late 1990s.  In my almost-decade of reviewing, I saw two shows she directed for the Humboldt Light Opera: Souvenir, a small-scale production of a play about Florence Foster Jenkins, and a large summer show, Light on the Piazza.  But mostly I saw the shows she directed with high school students of what came to be called the Northcoast Preparatory Academy.  She began that school, and has been its director ever since.

I'm reproducing two of those pieces below. The first is about Strindberg's The Dream Play she directed in 2007.  It was also the play she directed in the same theatre (the Van Duzer) in 1969-- if I recall correctly what she told me, back then she had been drafted to do it on short notice when another production fell through.  This column squares the circle further by telling the story of local musical favorites Joyce Hough and Fred Neighbor, who met when acting in that play.

But mostly this column is a decent introduction to the work she did at Northcoast Prep.  The school's productions were (and are) part of the educational process, and usually involve a long period of study and discussion.  (The actual productions I believe tended to get put together pretty quickly.) The students select the plays they want to do, which in some years meant the plays they wanted to combine, or perhaps do two.  Generally the first and second years did one show, the third and fourth years another.  The shows they did--and the editing Jean did on the scripts--favored participation by as many students as there were that year.

Cyrano

So the student experience came first.  But audiences (even apart from parents and relatives) got the benefit.  For one thing, they saw plays that they could not see elsewhere on the North Coast--plays that not so long ago used to be part of the repertoire for any student of the theatre, casual or serious.

The Northcoast Prep students always brought something special to these plays.  Their commitment, first and foremost, and enthusiasm, but also talent and skills.  Still, these shows depended on Jean Bazemore's taste, talent and skills as a director.  And on the elegant stage designs by Gerald Beck.  They ensured that the audience got clarity, as well as a viewpoint, an illumination.

Sancho Panza and Don Quijote 

So we got Brecht, Shaw, Strindberg, Arthur Miller as well as Shakespeare and Sophocles.  We got a youthful presentation of older heroes to youth:  Don Quijote de la Mancha , Cyrano.  And of an elder tragic hero, in Lear.

Their youth was also an asset in itself: adding verisimilitude to the young women in Arthur Miller's The Crucible, for instance.  But most impressively in Spring Awakening, which concerns adolescent feelings and experience.  That they could also do the adult roles convincingly in these same plays made them all the more compelling.

cast of Spring Awakening

For me the most memorable were The Crucible, Shaw's Joan, the version of several Henry plays from Shakespeare with a strong point of view about war in Mortal Men, Mortal Men.  And Spring Awakening.  The age of the actors relative to the characters and the play added a dimension, but it did not dominate the experience. I'm not even sure how they did it, but in most of these productions they had my complete confidence, and I was absorbed in the play itself.  Since they were different groups of actors, I have to conclude that a lot of it was due to Jean.

I am also appending to this column another (from 2006) that doesn't appear elsewhere on this site. Its only other virtue is that it concerns two directors I admired then, and admire still for the work they've chosen and produced: Jean Bazemore and John Heckel.   The first play I saw on the North Coast was directed by John Heckel--it was the 1996 winner of the national playwriting contest that HSU Theatre Arts department used to run.  Shortly after that, John directed a play by my partner Margaret Thomas Kelso at HSU, to which I contributed two songs.

But beside his good taste in directing several of Margaret's plays, he was responsible for some of the best theatre I've seen here.  His direction of both parts of Angels in America, in the relatively intimate space of Gist Hall Theatre, was mesmerizing.  He did a play by Cree playwright Tomson Highway that was astounding.

The Homecoming at HSU

I wasn't crazy about every move he made in his shows, and sometimes they took me out of the trance.  But his instincts for the mythic could add another dimension, and there were few others willing to take the chance on trying.  In more recent years, he directed some modern classics that nobody else would touch in this neck of the woods, Harold Pinter's The Homecoming at HSU and John Osbourne's Look Back in Anger at Ferndale Rep (which only happened because another show fell through.)

These two directors have very different approaches and get different results, but their choices of plays and playwrights are similarly rewarding, and for the North Coast, unfortunately unique.

The Dream Play  January 2007

The Dream Play by August Strindberg is performed at the Van Duzer Theatre by the Young Actors Guild. These shows from the Northcoast Preparatory and Performing Arts Academy are unique. They bring together young people devoted to an arts-based education with visionary theatrical veterans (director Jean Heard Bazemore and set designer Gerald Beck) in adaptations of stylistically unconventional and substantive plays that these days just aren’t seen much on the North Coast.

 The play’s not the only thing of interest on the stage. As with performances of other high school, junior high and young people’s group (such as those at Dell’Arte, Ferndale Rep and NCRT) that aren’t reviewed here, the experience of witnessing young people discovering themselves on stage can be inspiring, resonant and educational for the audience as well as the students. The play in turn can itself be infused with more meaning by youthful enthusiasm and sincerity.

 The Dream Play has all of that, plus an efficiently flowing, focused production, and Beck and Bazemore’s magnificent stage pictures: there’s a scene with a trapezoidal door suspended in space, with similarly shaped screens floating above an elegantly composed set of actors that’s breath-taking.

 These are juniors and seniors, some of them in their fourth or fifth play, and some on stage for the first time. The cast also includes exchange students from China, Germany and Ghana. A school production allows large casts, and there are as many as 20 actors on the stage in this one, with a Greek-style chorus that big enough to suggest the power of the people’s voice, whether used for good or ill.

 I saw Saturday’s performance, with Isaiah Cooper deftly expressing the Officer’s changing moods and circumstances (he alternates with Sterling Johnson-Brown), and Tehya Wood, stately, radiant and beautifully costumed as the Daughter of the god Indra (she alternates with Hanna Nielsen and Nicky Vakilova.)

 Bohdan Banducci, blessed with a fine stage voice and presence, plays the impoverished Lawyer whose marriage to the Daughter reveals earthly woes. Fiona Ryder’s aria wowed the crowd, student James Forrest composed the dramatically effective video projections, and all the actors capably brought out the humanity and the humor of the characters and the play.

 This isn’t pure Strindberg—there are musical interpolations and a much different ending, extolling the virtues of relationship and group action rather than the author’s emphasis on the eternal tensions of the human condition. But that’s also fitting for a youthful vision, and I found that seeing this play in action illuminated a further reading of Strindberg’s text.

 Saturday’s audience, which was clearly involved in each stage moment, included a certain couple with an extra interest. Joyce Hough and Fred Neighbor are familiar figures in the North Coast music scene. Jean Bazemore directed an HSU production of A Dream Play in the Van Duzer in 1969. Joyce Hough played the Daughter, and Neighbor was the Lawyer. They met while doing the play, and their nightly 20 minutes alone crouched in a crawlspace waiting for their entrance might have had something to do with an ensuing romance and marriage a year or so later. They were there together Saturday, sitting in front near Gerry Beck, who also designed the 1969 production.

The Accidental Brecht-a-thon  February 2006

Bernadette Cheyne as Mother Courage

By sheer coincidence, this week the HSU campus will become the Brecht capital of the world. At least I know of nowhere else that is hosting two productions of Bertolt Brecht plays in the same fortnight, with two nights that both plays are staged simultaneously.

 The HSU Department of Theatre, Film and Dance production of Mother Courage and Her Children begins tonight at Gist Hall Theatre, directed by John Heckel. Next Tuesday (Feb. 28), The Caucasian Chalk Circle opens at the Van Duzer, mounted by the Young Actors Guild of the North Coast Preparatory and Performing Arts Academy, directed by Jean Bazemore.

 Although it’s accidental, this local Brecht-a-thon is not eccentric. The unique ways his plays address searing issues that are suddenly central to this moment is a chief reason that Brecht is being revisited on stages from Los Angeles to New York, where a new adaptation of Mother Courage by playwright Tony Kushner will appear this summer, starring Meryl Streep.

 Bertolt Brecht was a central figure in Berlin’s vibrant theatre scene in 1928 when became famous for “The Threepenny Opera,” with music by Kurt Weill. By the time Nazi Germany invaded Poland in 1939, Brecht had escaped to Scandinavia, where he wrote Mother Courage and Her Children. Brecht uses plain language and dark humor to tell this story of a woman trying to eke out an existence selling goods from her cart to armies on the road, while protecting her three grown children from the very war that feeds them.

 Commenting on this play, Brecht said: “War is a continuation of business by other means, making the human virtues fatal even to those who exercise them.” For director John Heckel, the core question Mother Courage faces is: “How do you remain soulful, how do you retain a sense of nurturance?” in this situation.

 Brecht himself directed this play’s official premiere in 1949, with his wife, actor/director Helene Weigel, as the first “Brecht girl” to play Mother Courage. HSU actor, director and teacher Bernadette Cheyne plays her here, surrounded by a mostly student cast.

 For the songs in the play, popular North Coast singer-songwriter (and recent HSU grad) Lila Nelson wrote the music to Brecht’s lyrics, and leads the live band during performance.

 While Mother Courage is a kind of tragedy, The Caucasian Chalk Circle is a comedy with a happy ending. Brecht escaped to America in 1941, thanks to the support of a large expatriate German colony in Hollywood (including actor Peter Lorre, who’d worked with Brecht in Berlin) and the sponsorship of Luise Rainer, star of The Good Earth, even though they’d never met. But when they did take a walk on the beach together, Rainer suggested he try a story using the “chalk circle”—a kind of King Solomon method for deciding a child’s true mother. Brecht agreed, and eventually wrote this play while living in Santa Monica. (He returned to Germany after the war.)

 Director (and teacher) Jean Bazemore staged it about five years ago, when the Academy was new and only fifteen students were involved. This production, which uses only freshmen and sophomores (juniors and seniors did the fall show, Antigone & St. Joan ), has a cast of more than thirty actors and musicians, with music composed by students Izzy Samuel and Greg Moore.

 Her students respond to this play, Bazemore says, because of its humor and its core message--“that there are good people who take risks and make difficult choices in difficult times. They love it. The opportunity to meet characters who make courageous choices is really appealing to them.”

 Now I need to disclose that writing this column is one of my freelance gigs, and another I started at about the same time is doing publicity for this semester’s HSU-produced shows. That’s why I don’t review those shows here, but it’s still pretty awkward, because it’s impossible to write about North Coast theatre and ignore HSU. So I can only ask you to decide on how many grains of salt you want to apply to my remarks.

 In the nine years I’ve been here I’ve seen most of the plays these two directors have done. I also know them, and I wrote two songs for a play by my partner, Margaret Kelso, that John Heckel directed. (So add more salt and let simmer.) As directors, they have in common a strong visual sense, a feeling for theatrical space and the rhythms of performance, and a sure touch with actors.

 Their shows and choices of plays aren’t to everyone’s taste. But I know of no better directors on the North Coast than John Heckel and Jean Bazemore.

 Schools like HSU and the North Coast Academy are best able to do these plays because they can supply the large casts, live music and other production requirements that further their educational mission.  But since Brecht is a unique playwright not often performed, these are particular opportunities for audiences as well.

 For many years Brecht’s plays have been obscured by theatrical theories (many of them his own) and Cold War politics (due to his Communist sympathies.) But it’s said that the motto he kept above his writing desk was: “Simpler, with more laughter.” This may be the moment his plays can be seen for themselves, without the baggage.

This North Coast Monday: Not Just A Movie House

A staged reading of the first play ever produced at what became Humboldt State University happens one hundred years to the day later, on Monday December 8, at the same place: the Minor Theatre in Arcata, which is using this event to help celebrate its own centennial.  It first opened on December 3, 1914.  The reading is at 7 p.m., and is a benefit for the Emma Center.

The first staged readings this year of Her Own Way were held at HSU in October, and I wrote about that, and researched and wrote about the anniversary, the play and the playwright at HSU Stage.

Though I have nothing to do with this particular event on Monday, I did ascertain the dates that everybody is accepting.  First, there's the date of the Minor opening.  There are at least three dates in various stories that ended up on the Internet, but the most thorough of them (probably derived from the contemporaneous story in the Arcata Union) set the date at December 3.

The date of the production however comes from one source, sort of : a history of the HSU Theatre Arts Department written by its legendary chair, John Pauley.  It has the details about Humboldt State at the time, the show itself and even some information on the many other live stage presentations at the Minor in its first years.

But in the text, it gives the date of that first Her Own Way performance as December 3.  Not once, but twice.  It does however reproduce a facsimile of the poster or handbill that announced the performance, and on it the date is December 8.

The two numerals look alike so a typo is possibly, but which one?  If it's December 3, then the date for the opening of the Minor is wrong.

I concluded that the poster, not the text, was correct.  Sure, it could have been a mistake, but it's less likely, since it is contemporaneous, the kind of document an historian would accept over a later account. But what cinched it for me was that  it included the day: Tuesday, December 8.  And in fact, Dec. 8, 1914 was a Tuesday. The stories that said the Minor itself opened on Dec. 3, said it was Thursday, and that's also correct.

Pauley writes that Her Own Way was the first locally produced theatre event at the Minor.  But opening less than a week after the Minor itself opened for business with its first silent movie, makes it probable that it was the first stage event of any kind there.

As for the event on Monday, if it is the same as the reading in October, it's a kind of hybrid of a staged radio drama and a staged reading (with everybody at music stands) which I found unsatisfying as either.  But the play itself is actually involving.

The original play by the prominent and pioneer Broadway playwright of the time Clyde Fitch, has been cut considerably, and at least for the October readings, its most popular character in its Broadway run in 1903 was cut out entirely.  But she was comic relief in a way that may not translate, and not integral to the story.

The stars are the Stockwells--Danny, Greta and Glenys.  Everybody reads their parts from loose-leaf script binders, except Glenys, who even at the publicity photo shoot had her part memorized.  At the first performance she seemed to know the cues for other performers as well.  Who knows, by now she may be directing the show.

Theatre Ain't For the Faint-Hearted: Dell'Arte Christmas Show 2005

One of my first North Coast theatre pieces, more than a year before I began this blog. It reminds me of my intentions for my column--to include reporting as well as preview and reviewing. But regular reporting takes time and the resources of a staff writer. Anyway,for the record, Dell'Arte's 2005 Christmas Holiday show, and a statement about theatre and the people who create it .

USC football fans got a little worried a few weeks ago when star tailback LenDale White went down with an injury in practice. They still had the superlative running back Reggie Bush (this year’s Heisman) but no backups. Fortunately for USC it was a minor mishap and White returned to help them trounce UCLA on the way to their upcoming national championship game in the Rose Bowl.

 Injuries, even in practice or (as has happened in the NBA and NFL) in pre-game warm-ups, are an expected hazard in sports. But in the artistic realm of theatre? As two local productions discovered recently—within a week and just yards apart—freak injuries can instantly shake up a stage game plan, or cancel the show. No negligence- ---just the breaks of the game.

 The cast of Dell’ Arte’s Myth-o-maniac was starting this year’s first free holiday road show at HSU’s van Duzer Theatre on the Sunday after Thanksgiving. The audience was seated, eagerly anticipating the customary physical comedy of this popular annual performance.

The show began with the two female cast members, Audrey Finkelstein and Kali Quinn, singing their opening song as they approached the stage from the lobby. Christopher Beaulieu, the third and only male player, was onstage, preparing to go out and meet the two women. “I stepped down from the stage, I started to skip up the aisle,” he recalls, “and my ankle went out from underneath me and I hit the deck.”

 So Act I was moved from the theatre (where the show was cancelled) to the hospital emergency room. Beaulieu left there after midnight with a diagnosis of a bad sprain, and a wheelchair.

 After a short night at home in Ferndale, he was back at HSU at 8 a.m. to help re-block the show for a scheduled 10 a.m. performance. Beaulieu had to replace his walking, running, skipping and jumping with wheeling---and considerable crawling.

 The following Thursday, at HSU’s Gist Hall Theatre, a show created by Jyl Hewston’s physical theatre class called Immortal Steel was scheduled to open at 8 p.m. It was 8:20 when Hewston (also the director) apologized to the audience for the delay, and the show started. The delay was due to an accident.

 The show featured 16 actors and some 15 fights---with staffs, cudgels and mostly with swords. So was an actor’s arm accidentally lopped off by someone who didn’t know the blade was loaded? Not exactly. A half-hour before curtain, an actor tripped on some stairs.

 He had a minor sprain to one hand, but it meant that one key fight had to be cut entirely because he couldn’t hold a staff, and otherwise he became a left-handed swordsman, which required other adjustments. “I had to pull the other actors out of make-up,” Hewston said, “ and prepare them for the changes.” University theatre is supposed to be partly a learning experience, and it was for that cast. But the show did go on, for all 6 performances.

 Meanwhile, Myth-o-maniac had more than a half dozen shows scheduled while Beaulieu ankle was healing, and they were all over the place: Fortuna, Crescent City, Willow Creek and Eureka. By the time I caught the show at McKinleyville High School last week, Beaulieu was adept enough to be doing some wheelchair wheelies and other stunts. “Every show is different anyway,” he said, “but I try to add something each time, as I get comfortable with it. So now the wheelchair’s become part of the show. ”

 Beaulieu hopes to be on his feet again when they return to the Carlo Theatre at Dell’Arte this week, December 15 through 18. “But if I’m not, we’ll work the wheelchair in even more,” he said. “I don’t think it’s taken away from the piece.” In fact, it’s added something. “I’ve noticed kids in wheelchairs in the audience, and I think it’s great if they make a connection with something they’ve never seen before.”

 The Greek word for theatre means action. Drama is (among other things) the physicalization of fiction, the transformation of the storyteller’s gestures and the imagination of the listener into stuff and movement, in order to enact the story’s pith and moment. From the page to the stage---both enacting it and creating it new every time-- is the job of making theatre, and it’s sweaty.

 Though certain kinds of theatre make special demands on the actors’ bodies, all theatre is physical theatre. For those who do it, theatre is about as effete as football. All kinds of people get involved in creating its apparently effortless magic, but one thing is sure: theatre ain’t for the faint of heart.

Musical Stage Matters: North Coast 2005-14

North Coast Repertory Theatre produces one or two musicals a year; Ferndale Repertory Theatre used to do at least a couple, but in recent years has increased that number to something like a majority of their theatrical productions.

Nanette Voss-Herlihy, Kyle Ryan

 In addition, Redwood Curtain has done a few (I recall the outstanding performances of Kyle Ryan and Nanette Voss-Herlihy in their 2011 The Last Five Years) and Dell’Arte has done a couple for their summer shows (which I’ll save for later.)

 HSU does a big musical every other year, and lately has sprinkled in some smaller ones on the off years. And as I’ve said already, Humboldt Light Opera Company does a big musical every summer, and often a smaller one in fall or winter. But mostly it’s been our two self-described community theatres.

 One way to categorize musicals is a simple division between the traditional “song” musicals that include dialogue and action, and the opera-style musicals (sometimes called “sing-throughs”) in which most if not all of the dialogue is sung.

Craig Benson in Sweeney Todd 

The opera-style shows, a fairly recent trend, tend to be dramatic, if not melodramatic (reminding us perhaps that melo-dramatic literally means drama with melody.) This isn’t my favorite form, but a good show is a good show, and among the best examples locally are the outstanding Ferndale Rep's 2011 production of Sweeney Todd, and NCRT’s recent and very successful production of Les Miz. (The Les Miz review is probably the most recent—hence the last—time I noted that the lack of resources for elaborate staging often works to the benefit of local productions, getting them to the essence of the play and the storytelling.)

Another example of a contemporary sing-through is Next to Normal, which had an effective if muted production at North Coast Rep.  But like a lot of these musicals, it can be considered profound mostly in comparison with other musicals rather than other writing forms, including nonfiction. As much as I appreciated it, I have no desire to see it again.

 The song musicals can be dramatic but are most often comedies. They have the longer history in American theatre, and host most of the famous songs.  I tend more towards wit and sparkle than the sentimental, more Cole Porter than Rogers & Hammerstein.  But once again, a good show is a good show.  A really good production with exciting renditions of great songs is the ideal.

Fatal Distractions

 What makes a good production of a musical? It’s easier to say what a bad production is. Great singing elevates a production, but the occasional mediocre singer (especially if they can otherwise “sell” the song) rarely sinks a whole show. I can’t recall hearing that happen here.

 For a number of reasons (many of them logistical) shows here don’t excel in dancing, but the dancing that was included was seldom embarrassing. (There have been some real clunkers in live bands, though.)

Staging, lighting and sound are the usual culprits that ruin a show. When sound and lighting don't work as they should, they distract and drain energy. Sound is obviously crucial but the element that gets overlooked (pun intended) is lighting. People are never so wise as when they agree with your own observations, so I quote the writer William Goldman again: “Most musicals need to be brightly lit and played as close to the footlights as possible so that the audience can see and hear them.” Especially the songs.

But whatever the combination of factors are, the musicals that fail are those that don't serve the play, the music or in particular the performers. And therefore they don't serve the audience. Here's an egregious example of one.  Unclear storytelling is especially deadly in the newer styles of musicals, the sing-throughs and those with more dramatic than comedic intentions.

Another example of these storytelling problems would be the recent HSU production of Coraline, in which the fantasy was not grounded in the most basic ways that create an intelligible story. (Lighting, sound and staging were also deficient in what arguably is a play with music rather than a musical. Impressive costumes are not ultimately enough.)   In the case of The Last Five Years at Redwood Curtain, the structure of the script is confusing, and needs special attention in production decisions.

I quote playwright Tom Stoppard (again):"Theatre is a pragmatic art form. It's a storytelling art form, and lives or dies by its storytelling."

 Bad storytelling erodes audience confidence and takes them out of the play. Bad lighting and sound diminish the power and the joy. They disrupt the magic and undermine the performances.  They are all fatal distractions.

Happier Memories
But let’s go back to the sunny side of the street. Among the shows I recall is the 2007 NCRT production of Cole Porter’s Kiss Me Kate with two of the memorable talents we had on North Coast stages for awhile, Minderella Willens and Darcy Daughtry. Phil Zastrow and Rigel Schmitt performing “Brush Up Your Shakespeare” was also a memorable delight.

 My first recollection of Mindy Willens (an HSU student at the time) was in NCRT’s 2005 production of Once Upon A Mattress, another happy memory. I wrote in part: "The music is pleasant, the actors all exude charm, and they're committed to their roles but don't try to do too much. As the aggravatingly vain Queen Aggravain, Xande Zubin-Meyer channels Margaret Hamilton (the Wicked Witch of the West), and Steve Carter is a taller Harpo Marx as King Sextimus. Vince Farrar strikes the right poses but also humanizes the ironic Lancelot role of Sir Studley. Jordan Matteoli is well cast as the eager but innocent Prince Dauntless, Miles Raymer's stage presence and strong tenor anchors the action as the minstrel and Laura Hathaway has an affecting presence and attractive voice as Lady Larken.

 But this show belongs to Mindy Willens as Princess Winifred, who owns the stage from the moment she enters. Known as "'Fred," this Princess has a sweetly energetic assertiveness: She storms the castle by impulsively swimming the moat, and then is modestly embarrassed about it. With bright rolling eyes and a big voice, Willens grabs the audience and brings them cheerfully into the show."

Michael Thomas, Caitlin McMurtry

Guys and Dolls at NCRT in 2009 is memorable for David Powell (another bright star that passed through here) leading “Sit Down, You’re Rocking the Boat,” and particularly for the performance of Andrea Zvalesko. In addition to leads Caitlin McMurtry and Michael Thomas, My Fair Lady had the irrepressible Bob Wells singing-- and dancing-- as Eliza's father.

There were other productions that impressed me at the time, such as Ferndale's A Funny Thing On the Way to the Forum and Monty Python's Spamalot, NCRT's Marat/Sade, Fiddler on the Roof and The Producers.  But these are the ones that linger.

 There was one show however that remains for me an anomaly: a musical I don’t particularly like (I hate the movie of it) with mostly forgettable music—but it is a NCRT production I’ve never forgotten. The show was Chicago. So I’m resurrecting my review of it, plus the review of NCRT’s 2012 Anything Goes with additional items. Some of those made it onto this blog, others are here for the first time.


Chicago at NCRT (2006)

 In a few months the musical Chicago will celebrate its tenth consecutive year on Broadway. With songs by John Kander and Fred Ebb (who wrote “New York, New York” and the songs for Cabaret ), it became the Oscar’s Best Picture of 2002. It is based on a straight play about two actual 1924 Chicago murder cases written by a reporter caricatured as “Mary Sunshine” in the musical version.

 But its theme—the criminal justice system as show business—came from famed choreographer and filmmaker Bob Fosse, who wrote and staged the first musical production in 1975. I’m guessing that we’re seeing his experience with his 1975 Chicago in his brilliant 1979 film, All That Jazz. You can certainly see Fosse’s combination of trenchant observation and bombastic cynicism as well as his style of choreography very clearly in the movie of Chicago, but I was turned off by its excesses, including the mechanically speeded-up dancing, like a Bollywood film. The play is structured as a series of Vaudeville acts, but the movie transforms them into extravagant dream sequences, a technique done a lot more effectively in Pennies From Heaven (1981).

 For me, Chicago works much better on a smaller scale, such as the current North Coast Repertory Theatre production, directed by Xande Zublin-Meyer. There’s a much stronger sense of the vaudeville period that’s present in the music, and if this version and how it’s performed in Eureka lacks some of the cynical edge, it also doesn’t hit you over the head with it repeatedly. The satire is still there, and since the idea (crime as show biz) is no longer novel, the audience seemed to get it from the songs and dialogue.

 The story concerns the fall and rise of Roxie Hart, a wannabe vaudeville performer who kills her partner in an extramarital affair, and Velma Kelly, a star in a sister act who kills her other half. Kimberly Hodel is a fetching, brassy Roxie, with a 1920s flapper look. Especially in one gyrating number in a shimmering gown, she’s Betty Boop brought to life.

 Jolene Hayes brings a strong voice and a hint of vulnerability to Velma. With her vocals and acting clarity, Dianne Zuleger as prison Matron Mama Morton keeps the story moving, as does Daniel Scott Marcus as the seedy Master of Ceremonies.

 After a few establishing set pieces, the show really comes alive with the entrance of Brad Curtis as Billy Flynn, the lovable hypocrite defense attorney. Curtis has a Broadway voice and presence, and the energy of this show seems to jump into high gear whenever he’s on stage.

 But the show-stealer has to be Jamie Obeso’s song as Mary Sunshine. It’s as if Alfalfa from the “Our Gang” comedies grew up to become a female impersonator.

 All the actors bring something special to their roles, and not just the principal ones. The choreography by Rebecca Rubenstein gives us less Fosse and more vaudeville, which works for me. Dianna Thiel’s costumes are especially imaginative. There’s a live band behind the performers, there are lots of songs, and the stage is often filled with a large, hard-working and committed cast.

Additional Note 2014: This review got a letter chastising me for not mentioning Anders Carlson.  I should have--I still remember his comic stepping through the spotlights. (But the review was one of two in the limited space of that particular week's column)  He's been interesting to watch over the years--he's developed from a comic with a set of Chaplin-like moves to a disciplined actor who can still let it fly when it's right for the part (as he did in the 2014 I Hate Hamlet.)

Anything Goes at NCRT 2012

 In the Cole Porter musical comedy Anything Goes, now on stage at the North Coast Repertory Theatre in Eureka, Billy Crocker (played by Erik Standifird) is in love with young socialite Hope Harcourt (Keili Simmons Marble.) But he’s just the young assistant to a Wall Street patrician (Howard Lang), and she is engaged to a rich Brit, Sir Evelyn Oakleigh (Clayton Cook), because her mother (Toodie SueAnn Boll) craves financial security.

 They’re all sailing on an ocean liner to Europe except Billy, until he helps gangster Moonface Martin (David Simms) escape and  Moonface slips him the ticket meant for Snake Eyes Johnson, an even more important gangster.  So they’re all on the same boat, and it’s 1934—five years after the Wall Street crash. Maritime mayhem ensues.

 Also along for the ride is nightclub singer Reno Sweeney (Molly Severdia) and her vamping companions, Virtue (Ashley Adams) and Chastity (Kelly Gordon.) From the second Molly Severdia takes the stage, the production comes alive. She has that 30s sophistication and eagerness for what comes next. She’s confident as the character and as an actor, with a lively interest in every onstage moment. It’s the star part—originally written for the 26 year old Ethel Merman—so it helps that she also has the voice to make the show’s most famous songs soar. And when they include “You’re the Top,” “I Get A Kick Out of You” and the title tune, you’ve got your money’s worth right there.

 But there’s more. Keili Simmons Marble is incandescent as Hope Hartwell, and shares that quality of being visibly alive to each stage moment. She also triumphs as the show’s choreographer. There are a few well-executed large ensemble dances --the tap-dancing “Anything Goes” would stop the show except it’s at the end of the first act, where the show stops anyway.

 But her attention to smaller movements in smaller groups (including some Busby Berkeley reminders) also helps advance the show in the best way—with pleasant surprises. She is an excellent dancer herself, and the few opportunities she has to move suggest what more might have been.

 Anything Goes has been revised and revived several times in its 78 years (so far,) with Cole Porter songs cannibalized from other shows. The NCRT show seems based on the 1987 and 2011 versions.

 The music, the wit of the lyrics and the script are obvious reasons it’s lasted, but there’s also the script’s structure and the opportunities it provides the cast. Often in such comedies, the mirth is in elaborating the stereotypical characters established at the beginning. But this show’s silly, mildly satirical and mostly logical plot is also fed by a succession of small character surprises and reversals.

So Brandy Rose as the sweetly loose gang moll Erma takes it up a notch in her big song in the second act, giving ultimate expression to her character. But Clayton Cook’s big song (also a high point) reveals a surprising side to the established Sir Evelyn that changes the story’s direction. (Brandy Rose also reveals comedic power. Anders Carlson nails his comic moments in the relatively small part of the ship’s Captain. Those two paired in a screwball comedy might be something to see.)

 Erik Standifird has the enthusiasm and strong tenor voice of the 1930s romantic lead. Veterans David Simms, Howard Lang and Toodie SueAnn Boll anchor the comedy, and Ashley Adams and Kelly Gordon dance at least as well as they vamp.

Others in this strong cast are Gino Bloomberg, Tyler Elwell, Evan Needham, Jessi Shieman, Luke Sikora, Rigel Schmitt, Eric Stiles, Candace Wase and Katie Wolter. Lauren Wieland directed with wit and efficiency, and probably more. Calder Johnson designed the engagingly bright and useful set and lighting. Jenneveve Hood’s costume designs are great to look at and they express the times, but most impressively, she designed to flatter each individual.

 Music director Molly Severdia and her assistant Tina Toomata met the challenge of the sometimes technically difficult songs. The backstage band members are Laura Welch, Molly Harvis, Jeremy Cotton, Dianne Zuleger, Gina Piazza, Val Leone and Tamaras Abrams. Within its limitations, this is a fine production of one of the best musical comedies ever. More than that, it is alive and joyous. There are many memorable moments in this show—both from Cole Porter and from this cast.

Additional Notes: It's the Top

There are few if any Broadway musicals older than Anything Goes that get produced anymore. In fact, only 3 previous shows are generally classified as modern musicals (Show Boat in 1927, The Band Wagon in 1930 and Of Thee I Sing! in 1931.)

 Songs have since been stolen from other Cole Porter shows for this version of Anything Goes, and the script is not exactly the same as the show that premiered in 1934. That script began with legendary Brits P.G. Wodehouse and Guy Bolton but the Broadway version was quickly assembled by its director Howard Lindsay with a press agent named Russel Crouse. They were so successful at it that they themselves became a legendary Broadway writing team.

 The script was revised for the 1987 revival by John Weidman and Timothy Crouse, Russel's son and the author of one of the great books on U.S. presidential campaigns and the press, The Boys on the Bus (1972). I knew him for a few years around then.

 Anyway, the changes in the latest, the Tony-winning 2011 version that’s on tour into 2013 seem to be in musical arrangements, etc. So I don't actually know who is responsible for my favorite bit of dialogue. Asked by a ship's officer if he'd seen infamous racketeer Snakeyes Johnson somewhere on the ship, one of the characters says he saw him at the mizzenmast. “ But this ship doesn’t have a mizzenmast.” “Oh. It must have been somebody else.”

 The constant in all this is Cole Porter. His songs have not changed. His music is timeless, but his lyrics are very topical—particularly in one of this show’s most famous songs, “You’re the Top.”  The lyrics haven't been revised, so they are still a kind of mini-tour of 1934. While some of the places and the famous people named in the song are still well known, others mostly aren’t.  Quite a few clever references go right by a lot of the audience nearly 80 years later. With each generation, more references are lost—and especially the reason that this person, product, etc. is “the top.”

Some survive—even millenials know Fred Astaire—but others are so very 1934 that they’re historical markers. For example, broccoli. When Severdia and Standifird come to that line (“you’re broccoli!”) they make a face, mirroring a contemporary audience’s sense that it's an icky vegetable that doesn’t make it to "the top."  But in 1934, it did: known in Italy, it wasn’t farmed commercially in the U.S. until the 1920s and broke the Italian language barrier in the 30s. So broccoli was quite fashionable in 1934.

Severdia and Standifird relieved audience anxieties by acting out such contemporary reactions to some references (their performance was a highlight of the North Coast Rep production.)  But they appeared to simply ignore other references, like Jimmy Durante, a showman who was famous from the 1920s through the 50s, and was often parodied into the 1960s.

In fact some lyrics are now so obscure that there are several online attempts to track down their meaning. There was a long and involved theory about  what “you’re a drumstick lipstick” could mean--maybe something that involved ice cream and kissing?  Then somebody uncovered an old ad that showed that Drumstick was the brand name of a quite fashionable lipstick in 1934.  So no secret code ring needed.

 Still, it isn’t necessary to know that moisture-proof cellophane was a modern miracle in the 30s to laugh at the exuberant brilliance of “You’re the National Gallery/You’re Garbo’s salary/You’re cellophane!” The strange alchemy of the topical and the timeless in a play that lasts is one of the wonders of theatre, as it is in other arts. So it’s a vital part of our theatrical ecology.