Quintessence closed out the year with a high-energy production of "Kiss Me Kate." With a book by Sam and Bella Spewack and songs by the inimitable Cole Porter, it is a joyous show from beginning to end.
Kudos to Todd Underwood. A veteran director with a forte in choreography, he has traveled all over the country producing shows in both film and theatrical venues. Here, Underwood creates song and dance routines so vivacious you feel his cast is jumping for joy.
Set Designer John Raley handles the challenge of staging a play within a play. Makeshift cardboard walls create the sense of a …
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Quintessence closed out the year with a high-energy production of "Kiss Me Kate." With a book by Sam and Bella Spewack and songs by the inimitable Cole Porter, it is a joyous show from beginning to end.
Kudos to Todd Underwood. A veteran director with a forte in choreography, he has traveled all over the country producing shows in both film and theatrical venues. Here, Underwood creates song and dance routines so vivacious you feel his cast is jumping for joy.
Set Designer John Raley handles the challenge of staging a play within a play. Makeshift cardboard walls create the sense of a backstage rehearsal room. When shuffled a bit, they become the dressing rooms of the star actors, and when turned completely around, you are in the city of Padua.
The stage set itself is grist for Underwood's choreographic imagination. The entire cast, including several women in the ensemble, flow about the stage with stylized movements that blend seamlessly into the story. I struggle to remember a show when I felt engrossed by scene changes.
Jennie Eisenhower and Chris Cherin play the quarreling couple. When performing in "Taming of the Shrew," they are Katherine and Petruchio. Behind the scenes and in rehearsal, they are Lilli Vanessi and Producer Fred Graham, a divorced couple thrown together by chance.
The show is in keeping with the interest Quintessence has in presenting works pivotal to the development of theater. Earlier Broadway musicals, especially "Showboat" (1927) and "Oklahoma" (1943), redefined the genre by making songs integral to storytelling. This Cole Porter musical follows suit.
Porter seized the chance to align with the new direction in the American Musical. For the first time, his score is integral to the drama. Even so, songs like "So In Love" and "From This Moment On" are so big they jump out of the story. You have heard them, performed outside the theater venue by the premier interpreters of our popular song.
The first show to win the Best Musical Tony, Arnold-Saint-Subber produced "Kiss Me Kate" in 1948. But he came up with the show's core concept a decade earlier. While producing "The Taming of the Shrew" in 1935, starring Alfred Lunt and Lynn Fontanne, he observed the couple's off-stage squabbling matched their on-stage performance.
With fine physical presence, Eisenhower and Cherin shine in the acting compartment. As Lilli and Fred they are feisty lovers, full of ironic contradictions. But this is a musical, and their singing disappoints. Eisenhower's phrasing is uncertain and, at times, she seems to probe for the right vocal range. Cherin's singing could be engaging, but you have trouble hearing him because he sings from the throat and lacks projection.
Oddly, so-so singing from the main characters does not dim the show. The surrounding cast is ebullient and frequently on stage, either solo or in ensemble routines. Theater is a team effort and the full effect of the Quintessence production underscores the theme inherent in "Kiss Me Kate" - love of theater.
From the start, the celebration of theater is front and center, as in the ensemble opening number "Another Op'nin, Another Show" when the cast sings "Another job that you hope, at last / Will make your future forget your past / Another pain where the ulcers grow / Another op'nin', another show."
"Kiss Me Kate" continually returns to this theme. In "We Open In Venice," performers slump in exhaustion as they travel to their next gig. Act two opens with "It's Too Darn Hot," when actors rehearse despite enervating weather, an exhilarating song and dance ensemble that, by itself, is worth the price of admission.
Lilli and Fred share the stage with another romance. Showgirl Lois Lane plays Bianca in "Shrew" and jumps at the chance to star on Broadway. She also needs the money because her sweetie, co-trooper Bill Calhoun (Andrew Burton Kelley), piles up gambling debts. Lois cozies up to producer/director Fred, as well as other men when it suits her interest.
As Lois, Renee McFillin grips your attention with flirty looks, comic timing, a saucy strut and erotic allure. She also belts out Porter's urbane songs. In "Always True To You in My Fashion" she defends her floozy ways. In "Tom, Dick or Harry" she is playfully chirpy, and she chastises her gambler boyfriend Bill in "Why Can't You Behave." (Look who's talking!)
Lilli considers marrying General Harrison Howell (funny, preening Steven Anthony Wright), but decides, in the end, she cannot leave the theater. Even the two comical gangsters (Julian Brightman and Matthew Wautier-Rodriguez) are converted to theater in their duet, "Brush Up On Your Shakespeare." And the piano and brass combo of Thomas Fosnocht, tucked into the corner of a spiraling, iron stairway fleshes out a show sure to uplift your spirits.
Quintessence Theatre is located at the Sedgwick, 7137 Germantown Ave. "Kiss Me Kate" runs through Jan 5. Tickets are available at 215-987-4450.