Just two thoughts :
1. The audience adored the show.
2. THE AUDIENCE ADORED THE SHOW !
7
My Fair Lady, Carousel, Kiss Me, Kate. Three revivals in 2 years with white male directors, white male choreographers, and white male critics all applauding themselves for their awareness of, and 'fixes' to, representation of women, that give white male producers just enough justification to continue to profit from historically popular titles. Is it just me, or is something missing from this equation?
4
@Laura, in terms of being able to identify with feeling like an "other," I'll accept that in the theater world in New York City, for example, being gay in 2019 - likely not a disadvantage. Not that all the white men you mention are are gay, but some are & had to fight for the right to be open about it and not be looked down on. Any who can remember the 1980s or before know that feeling very well, despite the fiction that everything got better for us 50 years ago this June (at Stonewall, or what Ben Platt's young character on a "Will and Grace" told Will not to lecture him about, "I know all about Stonehenge.")
But even today, when I visit friends in Pennsylvania or family in Florida, I almost need a GPS to know the towns where it's OK to be openly gay vs. towns where it's "step into the closet, guys; you're good friends, not spouses" while stopping for dinner here. I feel spoiled being gay in 2019 Manhattan.
"Pretty Woman,' whatever you think of it, does not have a female writer (though a female producer guided it). But it does have a disabled bookwriter who created the original story, and that's rare. I will guarantee any disabled male feels even more being an "other" than a white woman. Top Broadway producers who would never victimize a gay person victimize a disabled person blithely, as long as the target can't afford a lawyer to fight them - choosing as knee-jerk to decimate the person's character & not question their worker. They're rich, therefore they can.
2
Rewriting Shakespeare, not to mention Cole Porter, is always a mistake. Kate's song must be as Shakespeare wrote it or it should be dropped. What about the rest of the song? It's about women. Has "Why are our bodies soft and weak and smooth, unapt to toil and trouble in the world?" been changed to "Why are bodies....?"? The show is called "Kiss Me, Kate," not "Kiss Me, Somebody."
In the so-so 1999 revival I was horrified by revised, ruined lyrics to "Brush Up Your Shakespeare" and by screamingly anachronistic pelvic thrusts in the choreography for "Too Darn Hot." I cringed, over and over. Yecch.
The show is a period piece. Respect that or do a different show. I won't be seeing this production.
6
@Greater Metropolitan Area, I know we're in a business where no dentist-investor's kid or associate-producer's spouse would dream of telling a composer what notes to change yet everyone tells the word people their great rewrite suggestions and calls the word person inflexible if they'd rather have their own solution. For this special ability, that's why someone goes to Amanda Green who knows how to make it fit (who's built a track record even with the Roundabout and the director) rather than Cee-Lo Green!
An example of hers that worked on all levels but MIGHT not be suitable for kids under 13, some incredibly sincere yet ribald work when sung by Nancy Opel with total sincerity, playing Tiffany who's totally unaware of what the second meaning of what she's singing lets on about her:
Curtis Moore & Amanda Green's "Let America ..."
https://www.trickybox.com/project/for-the-love-of-tiffany
(the second song down on the left)
@Greater Metropolitan Area: There are times when future interpretations are often inferior and there are times when they're superior. 1999 returned the unabrdged "Brush up your Shakespeare" considered too risque, and that was good enough.
But keep yelling at kids to get off your lawn. More seats for the rest of us!
5
@TishTash
The kids are nice. It's the deer, and they won't listen.
As I recall, the 1999 production changed/modernized lyrics--did not restore the originals, which I would have loved. Possibly both.
I disagree with this review. Kelli O”Hara sings beautifully, but enters the first scene not “refined” but seemingly defeated and grasping her assistant’s hand for strength. This “shrew” needed an antidepressant not taming “Tom, Dick and Harry” was unnecessarily vulgar (not bawdy). I’m no prude, but it was truly tasteless. The sets were ugly and cheap looking and the costumes worse. “Too Darn Hot” is performed on the downstage 1/3 of the set and seemed really cramped when it wanted to stretch-out and take-off. I could go on but ultimately the blame for so many poor choices must fall on the director. Very disappointed with this lackluster production.
7
@pmickey - Just about the Porter lyric, it's always amazing how daring lyrics could be. As a music director said, when asked since a lyric was meant to be suggestive, should we try some percussion or the singers try a sly wink [the evening was two ballads and otherwise get any laugh, however cheap, and if we rehearse it well enough, the spontaneity will work great]: He looked at the sheet music and told the director Porter's "If Baby I'm the bottom, you're the top" didn't suggest anything - it just came right out and said it. (We were grad students and he was in college and younger than any of us, so no one felt harassed and everyone looked at the lyric and sort of nodded, uh, huh, he's got a point.)
I think this may be a relevant irony to the talk about revisions: Maury Yeston when he taught at BMI, reminded us that musicals are more re-writing than writing, He said the only show he'd heard about to not make changes from opening out of town was KISS ME KATE. I asked Siri (actually I was asking my husband and Siri overheard) and the source Siri gave me turned out to be an interview Pat Cerasaro at BWW did with Maury Yeston.
https://www.broadwayworld.com/article/InDepth-InterView-Maury-Yeston-Part-I-Getting-Tall-20100507
Maury Yeston: … Herman [“My Fair Lady” producer Herman Levin] told me: "The only show to go out of town and come to New York without a single change," I think he said from Philadelphia, "was...," I'll let you guess. It's impossible to guess.
- Pat Cerasaro: I know it's not WEST SIDE STORY or GYPSY!
- Maury: KISS ME, KATE.
- Pat: And even then, they added that song in for the revival.
2
For all the nay-sayers here, all worried about taking the historical misogyny out of KMK, my advice is, don't go see this show. But everyone else should, because it's great, and the very slight, extremely thoughtful changes make this wonderful show more resonant than ever.
I also think the changes speak to a new generation of theater goers. I'm not sure what the cranky traditionalists here think would happen if young people, with egalitarian expectations of their relationships, saw a "comedy" with an unreconstructed M/f spanking scene or song lyrics like "I have oft stuck a pig before" (referring to a woman). Let's try to get a theater audience where the average age is under 60, shall we?
11
@Elizabeth Agree!! 30-somethign theater going here. I hadn't seen any other version of KMK when I saw this one, and it was FABULOUS. So much fun! I expected to cringe at the sexism but loved how they re-framed Lilli's story around returning to the theater and Fred's recognition of her abilities.
3
I saw the cast interviewed on the Kiss Me Kate red carpet and they all had their talking points ready, praising the changes in the show to reflect gender equity.
Well, I would argue the original play probably reflected that equity better than this production. From the beginning, through the advertising, photos, and the major "tweaks' to the play. Kelli O'Hara's character was always featured as the dominant one.
As I've said before, Lilli Vanessi was always the stronger of the two leads, even in the original show. Kelli O'Hara can handle anything. She could have done the uncensored version and still have been the premiere performer. I hope she takes that opportunity some day. She still would have gotten rave reviews and the play would have kept its integrity.
You can always make some adjustments to the book of any play, but it should never be a major re-write just to conform to political correctness. Especially, to a classic production.
Mr. Keating states it very well, "art is a product of the time and place in which it was created. Accept the work or don't perform it."
10
It's amusing that every critic who chooses to praise this production feels obligated to spend two-thirds of the review defending the continued presence of Kiss Me, Kate in the musical theater repertoire. Art is a product of the time and place in which it was created. Accept the work or don't perform it.
I suppose it is too soon to call this censorship of art and fear the extension of it to film and books, but it's not such a distant threat.
It is also cloying to have to hear that our society and culture are now so far ahead of that time in the past. Did our culture make a good decision back there in the 70s or so to have men and women occupy the same dorms, and often the same bathing and washing facilities.
Not if you look at the huge increase in claims of sexual assault that has sprung up since that innovation. And it turns out that most of them are claimed to have occurred in dorm rooms of those co-ed dorms.
Don't expect the educators who put this fine program of coed dorms into effect to start backing off it within a few years. Let the young ones surf on shore for a while and if we decide the evidence does not require immediate evacuation of doom rooms then we can wait a while longer to see if action is required.
So we have a new production of Kiss Me, Kate on Broadway to enjoy and, if it and, if it does stand up to the last revival, it will not be because of the few clumsy changes to the script.
7
@Bill Keating, I think it's not outrageous to say that while a great majority of commercial straight plays are created to express something the playwright wanted to express (and then the commercial world either accepts the play or not), almost all Broadway and major off-Broadway musicals that involve collaboration are designed to please and engage the audience, and sell enough seats to stay afloat. When a musical is in development, at a regional with (maybe secret) hopes for New York, or trying out out of town, changes are about what's coming across to the audience or not.
If you buy that theory, that commercial musicals (generally having being a hit as a key goal) are more about the artists giving the target audience what it wants: It then makes sense that for musicals being revived, adjustments may be needed and even the artistic vision adjusted if legally OK'd (just as adjustment was almost always was in the original production, whether in "Philly, Boston or Baltimo'e," or in NYC previews) to keep the material working for who it's intended to entertain - so that they'll tell their neighbors and online friends to come.
3
@Bill Keating: Great. You're actually championing rollback of gender equality because of certain people taking immoral advantage of it. You might as well say "racial mixing" should be likewise reverted.
They made a creative decision. Live with it. Time moves on; obsessive pining for a duplication of the past is a neurosis.
I was absolutely transported by this show! Kelli O'Hara, Will Chase were luminous it was as if they were from a higher-gravity planet. A goddess and a god among us mortals. And the dancers - I almost forgot to blink they were so fabulous!
It was Corbin Bleu who first drew me in, having seen him float and enchant as Billy Crocker in Arena Stage's 2018 performance of Anything Goes. His easy presence and strong acting are as superb as his footwork - if that is even possible. Hope to see a lot more of both showcased, and I was delighted that his strong performance in Kiss Me Kate ensure he's upward bound.
The music was phenomenal, the orchestra, singers and composers too. The costumes were divine, particularly Lilli's dresses and what Bianca's suitors wore. Oh my! Like most of the audience, I got a kick out of the mobsters' number. True the set was busy, but in a good way. And Always True to You (in my fashion) got a jolt of fun in its staging - instead of one long song, Stephanie Styles made a few returns to the stage, as if she kept forgetting the rest of her naughty past.
As for the PC discussion here so far - y'all are ever-so-brilliant but please get over yourselves. Just go see this show - it is so fun and such a sensory extravaganza, you'll forget the tweaks made to ensure outdated notions don't intrude. What else in this era allows you to park the outside world for a while and enjoy some pure pleasure? Suspend disbelief + be prepared to hum these tunes for weeks!
24
Feminist revisions of Kiss Me Kate are happening all over the country, and making for some interesting productions. One performance in Seattle last year, went so far as to have Lilli spanking Fred at the end of the fight scene, making a mockery of the scene, the continuity of the play, and making the whole thing into a joke to satisfy the director's aim to empower women. Unfortunately, you're probably going to be seeing more of that.
Bella Spewack in her later years allowed some “tweaks” to the play, but never anything major, and she insisted on the spanking scene staying intact to preserve the integrity of the play and story line. Lilli, even in the original production, was always the stronger of the two leads; she doesn’t need modern re-writes to show her strength. It was always there.
A director of a 2018 Texas production said, even while recognizing the sensibilities of today, he was going to stage the original, stating, “Kiss Me Kate is not a new play, but a classic, and so can’t be judged entirely by contemporary standards.”
Even with the revised productions, you’re more often than not still getting entertaining shows with excellent performances, as the exceptional talent, along with the outstanding songs and dances, still shine. It’s hard to go wrong with Kelli O’Hara.
While I support the #MeToo movement and those who work to end violence against women, I also feel you should tread lightly in censoring the arts, especially historic Tony winning plays,
19
@Selkirk I find it hard to understand how you can state:
"Lilli, even in the original production, was always the stronger of the two leads." Alfred Drake, indisputably a great singer, was not, dramatically, what anyone could call a pushover. Patricia Morrison was neither much of a singer nor exactly a barn burner of an actress. So what, if anything, is Mr/Ms Selkirk talking about? The characters as written or the performers who embodied them?
1
@James Klosty
As written. Alfred Drake and others who have portrayed Fred were excellent, and some indeed may have done better than their female counterparts on stage. The character Fred, is trying to rescue his career with a production of The Taming of the Shrew. He gets his more famous ex-wife to appear in the production, and she rescues and saves him, and his play, by her performance, even after all the on and off-stage shenanigans,
2
"Second-best bed"! I am aware that in drawing attention to this old saw, I am unlikely to get the author to give it up. But I can't help being annoyed by seeing it again for the umpteenth time. So here goes. If you wanted to show ignorance of the customs and practices that shaped the lives of the English in Shakespeare's day, you didn't have to do anything more than sneer at the fact that that Shakespeare willed his wife the second-best bed in their household. If some testator was well enough off to have more than one bed, the convention was that the best bed went to the heir and the second best bed to the spouse. In one 17th-century will of which I am aware, the testator explicitly instructs his executor to follow this convention, if, he say, "there is any difference" among the beds in his substantial household. So the fact that Shakespeare left his wife the second-best bed tells us nothing at all about his love or lack of love for her. Instead it tells us that in following convention in the writing of his last will and testament, he was a man of sufficient substance to have more than one bed.
40
I saw the fabulous 1999 revival with the fabulous Brian Stokes Mitchell in the Fred/Petruchio role. I will always watch Anne Miller in the MGM version in the second female lead. Neither seem to be in need of consciousness raising. The pseudo Shakespearean play within a play is already "updated" to be a Broadway musical, and the woman in Kiss Me Kate are already updated to be strong, self willed (if not exactly pleasant) characters. The comedy is not about becoming "woke/" It is about very flawed egotistic characters getting in their own way. And of course it is about those Cole Porter songs
As for the actual Taming of the Shrew, Shakespeare himself wrote it as a play within a play, in which a bunch of wedding guests depict the "Taming of the Shrew" for very drunken fool, as if to say only a total idiot would think that this is about how husbands and wives should really behave.
15
"If no one else is singing at that level — Mr. Chase, charmingly vain in the book scenes, lacks only the effortlessness necessary to ace his numbers — Porter’s score remains an astonishing encyclopedia of musical comedy style."
With all the talent that lives (and hopes to work) in New York, why should a major Broadway musical production feature anything below singing at the very highest level. It sounds as though far too much attention was paid to making sure the NYT critics are not offended by the sentiments of the times in which these shows were originally produced, and not nearly enough attention to the fact that these shows are, in fact, musicals, and therefore meant to be well-sung.
7
@GMG, regarding "musicals, and therefore meant to be well-sung"
Would we have wanted to not have musicals starring Rosalind Russell, Rex Harrison, Glynis Johns
And how did it go? What is it that we're cheering for? Her flaws, her flaws...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CzWq_0s9KWg
And IMHO, TV has put Will Chase (who sings better) in that star category in terms of what he brings to the audience upon entrance.
2
@Freddie I wouldn't trade Rex Harrison's Henry Higgins for anything. I have heard Jeremy Irons, Jonathon Pryce and the current Higgins, Harry Hadden-Paton, attempt to "sing" the songs as written, and the result is, for my money, anyway, horrible. Much as I loved Rosalind Russell's portrayal of Ruth in Wonderful Town, I felt Donna Murphy's performance was much more enjoyable from both the vocal and dramatic standpoints. The eye and ear get used to a certain style, and while I am more than open to different concepts of production, there are fundamental elements to any art form that if changed too greatly, can render the art form invisible. I don't care to hear Renee Fleming sing pop, anymore than I want to hear Madonna sing Tosca. Or Will Chase sing music that was written for a virile Broadway baritone sound - in the case of KMK, Alfred Drake.
5
I’m not sure what performance Mr. Green attended, but the day I attended Will Chase was in exceptional voice. He also nailed the vanity of the character beautifully. Still, the reason to see this show is to hear O’Hara. Lilli’s songs have never sounded better.
7
The story is a "warning to all sexes." Really? Pray how many sexes have we today and, absent a list, how to warn them all in just one PC musical clawed from an unprotesting, but clearly more creative past.
10
> “defanging the usual impression of violence from only the other direction”
Only for those who weren’t paying attention, though admittedly one does not turn to Cole Porter for serious moral guidance, nor to Shakespeare for egalitarianism or feminism. Converting the musical into an æsthetically, rather than politically, “completely successful” feminist parable would have required a better poet than Shakespeare, Porter, and the Spewacks put together, which Ms Green, for all her political virtue, is not.
I fear that Broadway productions of the ending of _Hamlet_ will now be required to replace Fortinbras with the anarcho-syndicalist peasant from _Monty Python and the Holy Grail_, and that future centuries will laugh at us, as we laugh at Bowlder and the happy-ending version of _King Lear_.
8
@Flash Sheridan, in that vein, "Oedipus Rex" could have the cast make the point of view on parenting more sensitive with a sing-along of "Mama, you took my eyes from me. Mama, you were too nice to me." I'd buy a ticket. (Well, maybe on TDF.)
1
It’s a classic award winning show with awesome songs and choreography. But with the changes it’s now indeed “Kick Me Kate.”
Today, every new production of KMK comes with the threat of revisionist re-writes. All of us should support the #MeToo movement and those who work to end violence against women, but not to massively alter Tony award winning Broadway plays
The iconic spanking scene in particular riles many, thinking that scene endorses violence against women. The show doesn’t endorse anything. It’s just a scene in a play. If a show features murder, the play isn’t endorsing murder. KMK never endorsed the beating of women, any more than Lilli’s attacks on Fred endorsed beating of men. It’s a comedy, and she threw many more punches than he ever did.
Many of us “purists” wince when we see the changes to a classic production, just to placate the easily offended. If you’re going to remove the spanking scene, perhaps you should remove Lilli’s attacks on Fred that lead up to it, or perhaps the song “I Hate Men.” After all, that could offend men. Where do you stop?
The Alhambra Theater in Jacksonville recently did the original version of Kiss Me Kate, and the skies didn’t fall. The cast, both male and female, said how well they thought the play, as written, translated to today.
I do expect the feminist productions will continue to predominate in today’s social climate, but hope there’s room around the country for the original play to still be staged on occasion.
29
@Selkirk, thank the theater gods that Stephen Sondheim and Sheldon Harnick are still around for this once-in a lifetime (*) seismic shift and still able to rewrite! John Kander prefers to keep creating brand new work over revisiting, it seems. Charles Strouse seems to be approving some unusual visions, as long as the original is still available and the update does not replace, and reports are that his reps cautiously expressed concern over one, ge them saw it and with an open mind, decide to bless it if he had input.
(I wish someone would - while Kander can still approve - try the more serious-minded hard-hitting "Woman of the Year" where Tess was abdicating her responsibility to an adopted child, which was a fun-free mess with a heartless Tess at the first act finale the first week in Boston. andd then made workable Tony-winning fluff in front of everyone who brought a ticket over a two week period. everyone even before the internet thought Neil Simin and Mike Nichols were in town having lunch and dinner near the Colonial to help Peter Stone make with the jokes (like, so help me, "I asked the Russian dance if he wanted to defect, but I think he got the wrong idea" when Bacall was stunning enough to make that work, and felt like holdover from "Sugar Babies") - but really, they were there to deal with Neil Simon's play at the Shubert which Nichlos was talking over!)
1
Re: "If a show features murder, the play isn’t endorsing murder."
Is it clear that's always the case, depending in the mood the show sets. In Chicago's "Call Block Tango," for example, we laugh because it's funny, and because the stories are so outrageously crazy like "He ran into my knife ten times" and yet dont we hope a couple of themdon't get found guilty?
Has this ever been felt as a weird place we may be in, that in comedy, it seems that it is Ok to have laughs in a situation where a victim is murdered and therefore gone from the stage or never there, but yet it seems very clearly not OK where the victim is assaulted and just badly hurt and right there onstage. It's logical dramatically, that the person who is out of sight, just not seen anymore, is out of mind in the illusion of what we're seeing. We feel for a character who is there and has been hurt, but not for a character who's dead and (to us in the audience) gone for the rest of the evening. Just strikes me suddenly that beaten in comedy and drama is "worse" than killed.
(While it's not murder in the plot, one of the many courageous things about "Dear Evan Hansen" is that we keep seeing Connor even at times when the mood is very light, and one of the many accomplishments is that such a risky choice works and pays off so that his death isn't just a plot device. If a character had been beaten and hurt and present, rather than dead and present, likely not.)
1
@Freddie
Plays can be many things to many people; obviously the original Kiss Me Kate arouses those feelings, pro and con.
Right now, in the midst of the #MeToo movement, the show is a target for those who think the play promotes misogyny and violence towards women.
Some of today’s revisions are now using the play as a template to champion the feminist cause, this one included. All the advertising for the show championed Kelli O’Hara’s character over that of Will Chase, as did the re-writes. I'm still looking for the proclaimed gender equity.
Lilli, in the original play, gave as good as she got. The spanking scene that’s being removed from many of today’s presentations was the end result of Lilli’s punching, kicking, slapping, and biting Fred. It fit into the context of the action leading up to it. That’s all it was, a scene in a play. Today, she can still do all that, but he can no longer give her a few swats on the bottom in retaliation. She certainly didn't back down afterwards. It’s a comedy, and both character’s actions should be looked upon in that light.
Many actresses who have played the part down through the years, did it with a strength today’s feminists would be proud of.
In today’s cultural climate, more than likely feminist revisions are going to be in the majority of future productions around the country. I hope the original can still be enjoyed by those brave enough to produce it. It does show strong women existed, even back in the 1940’s.
2
Jesse Green wrote, "The wit of Bianca’s 'Always True to You in My Fashion' disappears amid too much stage business."
This was true in the last revival as well. It's hard for me to imagine the song being more overstaged and with more foolish and irrelevant business than in that production. If this staging is even busier . . .
I suppose the song is just no good and needs to have lots of business to keep the audience from being bored with it.
And just in case anyone can't tell, I don't mean that last comment to be taken as representing my real feelings.
3
OH..."PEOPLE are so simple." Everyone feel better now? (We sure taught those benighted mid-century writers...not to mention that hack, Shakespeare...a thing or two.) You should never, ever feel ruffled, or angry, or sad, or outraged at the theater. Now this classic show is ready for popular consumption--and twenty-first century ticket prices.
12
It’s a classic award winning show with awesome songs and choreography. But it’s now indeed “Kick Me Kate.” Your headline says “it’s now a fair fight.” No it isn’t
Today, every new production of KMK comes with the threat of revisionist re-writes. All of us should support the #MeToo movement and those who work to end violence against women, but not to alter award winning Broadway plays
The iconic spanking scene in particular riles many, thinking that scene endorses violence against women. The show doesn’t endorse anything. It’s just a scene in a play. If a show features murder, the play isn’t endorsing murder. KMK never advocated the beating of women, any more than Lilli’s attacks on Fred endorse beating men. It’s a comedy, and her pounding on him was always more one sided. Now, even more so.
Many of us “purists” wince when we see the changes to a classic production, just to placate the easily offended. If you’re going to remove the spanking scene, perhaps you should remove Lilli’s attacks on Fred that lead up to it, or perhaps the song “I Hate Men.” After all, that could offend men. Where do you stop?
The Alhambra Theater in Jacksonville recently did the original version of Kiss Me Kate, and the skies didn’t fall. The cast said how well they thought the play translates to today.
I do expect the feminist productions will continue to predominate in today’s world, but hope there’s still room around the country for the real play to be staged on occasion as well.
3
“...it’s a pleasure to roar at suffering that is big and fake and somebody else’s.”
Early contender for review quip of the year.
2
@Sam, remember what Mel Brooks or Carl Reiner said: Comedy is you fall down a manhole. Tragedy is I get a paper cut.
1
I saw this show a few weeks ago and thoroughly enjoyed it. Go see it.
16
I want to add that the problem with PC is that it is a mode of thought control. What is not spoken is eventually not thought of. That is a two-edged sword, but in a world where free speech is allegedly espoused, it is a bad thing. In cases like this it hides the culture it came and in turn perhaps prevents us from understanding it.
6
Why can't reviewers be courageous enough to refrain from bringing the PC sensibilities of the moment (which will likely change the next moment) in evaluating a lot of literature and theater originally from another time or place? Producers and directors are free to update them if they want or to leave them as is. Why can't these works simply be evaluated for what they are or perhaps as a viewer into another time and place? All this PC nonsense is tiresome!
17
I’m curious - you talk about the glances and attitudes of the actresses but how does the show actually end now? Does Kate (Lili) still go home to her man with a sore bottom and swallowed pride? I recently saw a production of the show in Maryland and while the music and choreography were delightful, just about everyone in the theatre was disturbed by the ending. The younger audience members being the most disturbed having grown up in a time where public displays of violence against women are (hopefully) punished and certainly not celebrated. It left me feeling guilty for having enjoyed the rest and basically swearing off the old musicals that I used to love for that reason. If this can be remedied with adjustments to the script hooray for that! Let’s make a point of raising those old standards to new levels of understanding. Not to totally undo the original intent but at least to use theatre as a positive tool for social impact.
How did this one end? Please share for those of us who can’t make a trip to the theatre.
9
Political correctness! What a tragedy! Yes, today's plays should not adhere to older standards, but older plays reflect an older value system which should not be forgotten (for better or for worse). nothing wrong in updating the play to reflect current values but to devote so much type to it seemed more like editorializing.
19
@kenjf01
Kate is not allowed to sing “I Am Ashamed that Women Are So Simple” (changed to “people”) but is allowed to sing “I Hate Men.” Tells you everything you need to know about third wave feminism.
10
"Not so blithe were his book writers." Was this a gender inequality issue, or just that the public would like the idea of a couple having written this particular show? (Wondering if they have the same heirs! If not, any renegotiation based on real work done in the future, maybe?)
Tune of “Always True To You In My Fashion”
In this new enlightened age
When inclusion is the rage.
On the stage make sure the rage will work today.
And I always say “me too” to a fight with passion
And I always say “me too” to a fair melee.
For the crowd today to fall
For a knock-down-drag-out brawl
Do a brawl that works for all, and save the play.
So be sure to say “me too” to a fight with passion
Yes, be sure to say “me too” to a fair melee.
Our Sam may have been a crook
With the credit that he took.
Since it’s Bella’s book
Will they tell us: “Look - Sam gets less pay.”
‘Cause these days we say “me too” to a fight with passion.
Yes, today we say “me too” - to a fair melee.
25
@Freddie Thank you Freddie, your witty reparte and flair for lyrics are always a welcome comment to read.
Wherever he is, Mr Porter is smiling.
"How nice to find “Kiss Me, Kate” rescued from that fate: still speaking to us — or better yet, singing — from the not so buried past."
The "Carousel" Broadway just saw seemed to have gotten caught with contracts having been signed and all the people committed to before the big shift happened. It seems looking back that some press felt it coming very soon after inauguration January 2017 but it wasn't until late summer-early fall 2017 that it was clear adjustments had to be made and expectations were that they were needed soon. Except for the more serious tone than in "Kiss Me Kate,' and knowing Amanda Green's incredible range way back in BMI and her cabaret shows too before Broadway, the sensibilities here for the additional material sound like what's needed - unless someone at R&H already has in process the rescue of "Carousel" from that dreaded bonfire. That production felt like just an unfortunate victim of timing in terms of financial hit or miss.
4
@Freddie
I saw the Carousel you mention and I saw this Kiss Me Kate. Carousel was better. Better staging, better performances. Less updating but does that matter? Carousel shows us how some people may have behaved against the sensibilities of another era. Frankly, it shows us how a lot of people behave today. It's a window into a pattern of behavior that troubles us, and it does not end well because of that behavior. Kiss Me Kate is a little different because it tries to lay claim to the correct way to behave. For this reason, it must be updated. This update, is fairly successful. The show is enjoyable.
6
@SJG, Are you suggesting maybe #MeToo was just too raw April 2018? Looking at the grosses, there was an audience that was willing to spend and that was coming, but not enough to cover running costs. (When I think of those Goldwyn quotes, like "if the crowds don’t want to come you can’t stop them," these days I think of Mr. Rudin. Did he really turn that next-day PR disaster from “Mockingbird” into good feeling looking at it two weeks later? Maybe that’s show business, that if it feels OK, it is OK. Sure looks like it went away. It helps that the little guys who first felt like victims are mostly now thrilled to be getting a raved-about Sorkin play and feel in an even better position than before. Wow.)
In retrospect, even going back to us fellow BMI-ers cheering her outrageous comedy work in a basement theater at the Fringe festival, it feels right that Amanda Green as part of her career has taken her own family’s work like Hallelujah Baby and (with her mom) Subways Are For Sleeping -and made what seemed unrevivable today totally revivable today. And the valuable perspective changes felt seamless in On the 20th Century, a score so many fans know by heart, and which was already terrific in the 1970s. That this ability carries to other great writers’ work makes sense given the craft level, but is still very happy news. (I keep hoping she'll try Applause while Strouse & Adams are with us, but looks like the Ivo von Hove All About Eve might tie that up anyway.)