KISS ME, KATE, The Musical

UK, 2024, 160 minutes (15 minutes intermission), Colour.

Adrian Dunbar, Stephanie J Block, Charlie Stamp, Georgina Onaurahm John Stacy, Nigel Lindsay, Hammad Animashaun, Peter Davison.

Directed by Bartlett Sher.

Kiss Me, Kate is a 1948 Broadway musical, book by Sam and Bella Spewak, music by Cole Porter. It was successful on Broadway, made into a lavish in MGM feature film with Kathryn Grayson, Howard Keel, Ann Miller, and an introduction to Bob Fosse and Carol Chaney and Fosse’s choreographic style.

This version is staged in London’s Barbican theatre.

The stage is very adaptable, movable, at times backstage of the theatre where Shakespeare’s The Taming of the Shrew is being performed, sometimes the dressing rooms, sometimes the outside, and sometimes the stage itself for the Shakespearean performance. Which means that the costumes move from 1948 style to period costumes.

This version does have some reservations about the male chauvinism of the central character, a speech by Adrian Dunbar as the lead and the  of director The Taming of the Shrew, highlighting more contemporary issues of feminism, women’s rights, misogyny… The audience is asked to accept these perspectives in Shakespeare’s play.

There is some parallel of Shakespeare’s play in the relationship between the leading actor and the leading actress, formerly married, divorced, she engaged to a high-powered military presence at the White House, even taking a phone call from the President. She is played by Broadway star, Stephanie J.Block. It is a surprise to find dramatic actor on screen and television, Irish Adrian Dunbar, as the director. She has a strong stage voice, his rather more subdued, pleasant.

There is a strong supporting cast of singers and dancers and, at times, some lively choreography, especially with the ensemble joining in Its Too Darn Hot. Audiences familiar with the play and the film version will be looking forward to the renditions of the various songs and the choreography. The basic plot about the divorce, the reunion on stage, the engagement, a final reconciliation seeming rather slight in comparison.

Which means that the Cole Porter music and lyrics are what is important. The central song is So in Love, sung by both leads. The actress playing the younger sister, Bianca, has the showstopper of Faithful in my Fashion. The lead has The life I Lately Led. The actress has I Hate Men. And there is the jaunty introduction to the play on tour, We open in Venice…

But, as in the film, so much of the show is stolen by the two supporting actors playing the gangsters who have to keep an eye on the lead because one of the lesser actors has signed his name for a betting loan. They have their guns, create some mayhem on stage and behind the scenes but, ultimately, have their song, Brush Up your Shakespeare, with its jaunty tune, its amusing lyrics and plays on Shakespeare’s titles and characters (and rhymes), even getting the audience to join in.

Kiss Me, Kate has its high moments and its rather more ordinary moments, so, something of a mixed classic.