"Kiss Me, Kate" Roundabout Theatre Company Studio 54 (through June 2, 2019)

          Kelli O'Hara and Will Chase  (photo credit: Joan Marcus)

Another opening, another revival of “Kiss Me, Kate” or perhaps re- titled “Kick Me, Kate,” as this is what will come to mind as you watch Kate (Kelli O’Hara) give Petruchio’s (Will Chase) derriere what for and more in this rowdy and rousing and also slightly finessed version courtesy of the Roundabout Theatre Company. The original play-within-a-play book by Bella and Sam Spewack was ingeniously fused with Shakespeare’s “Taming of the Shrew may have a slightly creaky resonance during these Me-Too days of late, but director Scott Ellis has remained true to the Spewaks and composer Cole Porter  in more than his fashion. This, by focusing on what is simply never out of date: the funny book, the great score and then giving choreographer Warren Carlyle ample opportunities for his dance designs and the dancers who stop the show.

The question for seasoned musical theater fans is how this revival stacks up against the one produced twenty years ago in which Brian Stokes Mitchell memorably contended with Marin Mazzie’s more full-frontal attacks. To say it straight out: It’s a damn good show but no rival to its predecessor. 

Even as this musical opens with the familiar “Another Op’nin, Another Show,” you sense it won’t be just another opening. It begins quietly with one stagehand entering the empty backstage area, followed by more backstage crew. As one voice is added to the other, the exuberant song steadily builds in excitement. The crew is soon joined by members of the acting company, the dancers and singers and, finally, the principals, all checking out their out-of-town-theater and warming up their bodies.

There is little doubt that “Kiss Me, Kate” (first produced to acclaim in 1948) is one of the great ones. It is filled to the brim with Porter’s coolest melodies, wittiest lyrics and certainly in this staging dancing that is emphatically calculated to be “Too Darn Hot.” This highpoint is set in the alley behind the theater on a hot night following a performance and provides a showcase for the dancers to switch gears from limp and languid to lusty and loose.

“Kiss Me, Kate” is the kind of smart and raucous musical comedy that would seem to have vanished forever. The Spewacks fashioned the cleverly entwined plot (supposedly inspired by the real-life thespian duo of Alfred Lunt and Lynn Fontanne) to parallel the personal problems of the tempestuous Lily Vanessi and the vain Fred Graham, a forever battling ex-married showbiz couple, with the characters they play - Katherine and Petruchio - in “The Taming of the Shrew.” The failing of some magnitude in this production is the lack of chemistry (and not for lack of trying) between O’Hara and Chase.

O’Hara is sublime both in voice and in performance as she embraces Kate as a snarling hellcat and later as a beguiling heroine in her final slightly tweaked aria “I’m Ashamed That People (substituted for Women) Are So Simple,” inspired by Katharine’s sly lecture the ladies. It will evidently sooth the souls of those who are easily offended by history. Chase is certainly good-looking enough and he sings well enough as he assumes Petruchio’s obligatory macho countenance throughout. However, his  egotistical poses in the prose song “I’ve Come to Wive It Wealthily in Padua” only point out that Chase is simply not O’Hara’s equal when it comes to creating magic or magnetism on the stage.

There is a lulu of a subplot that involves a flirtatious actress (Stephanie Styles  making a terrific Broadway debut) and her gambling boyfriend (Corbin Bleu). They untypically complement each other and are a standout in “Why Can’t You Behave,” and “Always True to You (in my fashion).” This powerhouse couple display a magnetism that is missing from the leads.

 
Just as we might expect the company’s antics in old Padua, cued by the humorously repetitive “We Open in Venice,” to provoke laughter (it does) we also expect the two gangsters, as played by John Pankow and Lance Coadie Williams to stop the show with “Brush Up Your Shakespeare” (they don’t). I can only assume that two good actors were poorly directed. No brush-up is needed to appreciate the artistry of designer David Rockwell, whose settings are a beautiful contrast of on-stage fantastical and back-stage functional. The  costumes by Jeff Mahshie are snappy and silly in keeping with the spirit of the show. If providing an audience with a generally good time was the goal, “Kiss Me, Kate” delivers.