KISS ME, KATE! (2019) Reviews — Page 2

A couple things, first, the charge wasn't that she couldn't do comedy.  The charge I was replying to was that she was miscast which I still believe.  She was miscast for the same reason Bernadette was considered miscast in Gypsy.  Certain roles have a long standing history of expectations.  can she reinterpret this, sure, was it successful, I would argue, no, based on the reviews that aren't even polarizing but all over the place- which I think that speaks volumes to the production itself.  From step one, the creative team didn't know what to do with this, and anytime you bring in someone to revise or modernize the text, especially the first ever Tony Award winning Best Musical, you're setting yourself up for failure.  The approach should've been to acknowledge it for what it was and then try to interpret it for a new audience, but the conceit of the piece was always going to be a hard sell to a "me too" audience.  Which brings me to why do it in the first place?  Many have said these reviews don't matter, because it's selling well.  Ok, here's the rub, Roundabout is a subscription house- those tickets were sold before this was cast or reviewed.  Studio 54 is one of the smaller houses and it is subscription based who's ages of members are largely above what's considered to be millenial- so why tailor this to millenials? It was a misfire all around.  Back to Kelly, who I should caution I am a fan of despite what you're reading, people keep saying she can do bawdy- show me the receipts.  She's painting with too broad a brush here, commit, go all in, don't be afraid to get a little messy- O'hara largely strikes me as that one Musical Theatre actress in your college class who has an amazing voice, is a great technician, but struggles to really dig in and be anything but perfect- Musical Theatre grads, you know this person.  I want to see a fully committed performance, I want to see someone make a damn choice and go for it, fail spectacularly or succeed greatly, but I don't want "meh" at the end of their efforts.  And for the love of God, the director is not 100% to blame for an actor's performance. A Director's job is to tend the garden not plant it.  I think when an Actor/Actress says the Director got this performance out of me they do themselves a disservice- it was always in them, they needed a little guidance to find their way, but it was there. All around, this was a misfire- different strokes for different folks indeed! Finally, I think Roundabout has a real producing problem, they take all their risks and cater to new works or new interpretations at the Off-Broadway level, and as some reviews pointed out, many of that work is thrilling, like the re-interpretation of Merrily we Roll Along currently running- do more of that Todd, but give it a shot on a larger stage!

Updated On: 3/15/19 at 10:14 AM

Teachout's Review:

‘Kiss Me, Kate,” Cole Porter’s ingenious 1948 transformation of “The Taming of the Shrew” into a backstage musical, is back on Broadway for the first time in more than 17 years. The Roundabout Theater Company has reunited the production team behind its 2016 revival of “She Loves Me” for a big-budget version directed by Scott Ellis and choreographed by Warren Carlyle whose cast is headed by Kelli O’Hara and Will Chase. Would that it were even half as good, but this “Kiss Me, Kate” is bland and unimaginative. Not only is Ms. O’Hara miscast—she is as warm and friendly as Kate is sharp-witted and spiky—but she and Mr. Chase have all the romantic chemistry of a pair of squabbling siblings. As for Mr. Ellis’s staging, it looks as though he’d put the show together while thinking about something else (which he may well have been, seeing as how he’s also directing “Tootsie,” which opens on Broadway next month).

For the record, Mr. Ellis brought in Amanda Green to give the last scene of “Kiss Me, Kate” a feminist spin, and I’m sorry to say that she’s delivered the goods. Among other things, she’s changed “I Am Ashamed That Women Are So Simple” to “I Am Ashamed That People Are So Simple” in order to spare the tender sensibilities of the aggressively woke. I yield to no one in my admiration for Ms. Green, but it’s no small trick to have simultaneously insulted Cole Porter, Shakespeare and every literate person in the audience.

JayElle said: "OldBlueyes wrote, in part, "Lilli is self-assured and every bit her ex-husband’s match; she is spanked by him on stage only after knocking him around physically herself, and ultimately reconciles with him on her own terms."

Did we see the same show? I saw Kelli & Chase kick each other in the butt, he threw her over the shoulder, but I didn't see the spanking scene that was in the movie. That behavior was horribly acceptable in alot of movies, tv in the 1950s."

I didn't make it clear that I was talking about the 1999 revival on Broadway and the West End. These were very popular and have stayed with us since the West End production with Rachel York following Marin Mazzie in the role of Katherine. This production is well known since a performance with Rachel and Brent in the roles was broadcast on Great Performances and is available on DVD and streaming on Youtube.

The book of the original underwent major changes for 1999 and this one that just opened incorporated all those changes, so there was less for Amanda to do.

In the first preview there was no spanking and the scene just lost its way and drifted to no real conclusion. In the last preview they wisely followed the path of the Rachel/Brent production. Petruchio got his arms around her, but in trying to get her into the spanking position she slips away and falls on the floor. At this point pandemonium breaks out and the curtain is lowered. In the next scene backstage Lilly slaps Fred a couple of more times and exits with dignity, while Fred is whining that he thinks his eye is bleeding. This last was kept in the new revival.

I hope this satisfies you. The spanking is really very upsetting to women.

Phillytheatreguy10 said: "Acting in opera is often bandied about as not being very good- in a sense you proved my point with that argument. Musical theatre acting and opera acting are polar opposites. Emoting a song and embodying a role are very different.

I guess our discussion is over since you accept no arguments against you. You want evidence that Kelli can act bawdily so I refer to your a clip from The Merry Widow showing her intoxicated and wandering onto the stage and joining the kick line with the chorus girls. By showing you this I'm really help proving your point. Huh?

The New York Times reviews are no longer important. Huh? You might want to think so and I might want to think so, but we know that this is simply not true.

But, forgive me, truly wacky is your plan to save Roundabout. Instead of putting on splashy, high budget, Tony-winning revivals, they should put on Broadway a big budget Merrily We Roll Along? The original production didn't last two weeks. Time goes backwards. That's fine for a Star Trek episode, but for mainstream theatergoers? Based on Jesse Green's review, it wouldn't make his list of top 500 revivals.

This is a baby that only a Sondheimite could love. (Although it does have one of his best ballads in "Not a Day Goes By."  In fact, I covered that song as well as "Good Thing Going."

 

 

It's too bad that Charles Isherwood went from being arguably the second most influential critic in New York if not the country to the relative obscurity of Broadway News. He probably speaks for many thousands of lurkers here.

The changes are certainly reasonable — and, frankly, I have always found the depictions of gender relationships in the Shakespeare play distasteful, no matter how hard directors try to soften or subvert them

— but are they really necessary? Surely Broadway audiences attending a revival of a 1948 musical comedy drawing on a 16th-century comedy might be expected to recognize how the culture has changed.

OlBlueEyes said: "JayElle said: "OldBlueyes wrote, in part, "Lilli is self-assured and every bit her ex-husband’s match; she is spanked by him on stage only after knocking him around physically herself, and ultimately reconciles with him on her own terms."

Did we see the same show? I saw Kelli & Chase kick each other in the butt, he threw her over the shoulder, but I didn't see the spanking scene that was in the movie. That behavior was horribly acceptable in alot of movies, tv in the 1950s."

I didn't make it clear that I was talking about the 1999 revival on Broadway and the West End. These were very popular and have stayed with us since the West End production with Rachel York following Marin Mazzie in the role of Katherine. This production is well known since a performance with Rachel and Brent in the roles was broadcast on Great Performances and is available on DVD and streaming on Youtube.

The book of the original underwent major changes for 1999 and this one that just opened incorporated all those changes, so there was less for Amanda to do.

In the first preview there was no spanking and the scene just lost its way and drifted to no real conclusion. In the last preview they wisely followed the path of the Rachel/Brent production. Petruchio got his arms around her, but in trying to get her into the spanking position she slipsaway and fallson the floor. At this point pandemonium breaks out and the curtain is lowered. In the next scene backstage Lilly slaps Fred a couple of more times and exits with dignity, while Fred is whining that he thinks his eye is bleeding. This last was kept in the new revival.

I hope this satisfies you. The spanking is really very upsetting to women."

The spanking was in the Barret/York production 

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=DTSkWZXai9w&list=PLe5zg02hnnxk8RkbL8gRDWiBY5H2aZuc0&index=11&t=0s

poisonivy2 said: "I saw this this afternoon and have no idea what the complaints are about. Thought it was one of the funniest, most enjoyable pieces of theater I've seen in a long time.

 

I’m glad you enjoyed. I was there for the first preview and found it blissful. 

 

I'm sorry to have given you that impression. It was this scene in the first preview that was very ragged and clearly still under development. The jousting went on, back and forth, for too long and never reached a climax. By the last preview they had decided to closely follow the scene in the 1999 revival, omitting anything found to be objectionable. 

The entire 1999 revival, having traveled to London and taken on Brent Barrett and Rachel York as principals, is on YouTube in 22 6.5 minute segments. (It's also available on Blu Ray.) There Kate punches Petruchio in the gut and later elbows him in his private parts. It's understandable that O'Hara did not want to do these. But she catches Petruchio with two or three hard slaps to the face, and relentlessly comes at him kicking. Petruchio in Roundabout grabs Kate and tries to put her in position for the spanking, but she slips through his grasp, falls to the floor, and pandemonium ensues. 

There was no such climactic moment in the first preview, no curtain falling and no flustered entertainers improvising a dance in front of the curtain while loud noise came from behind the curtain.

So apparently everyone is happy with the scene now and I have written far to much about it and am done with the subject. This scene was just a mess in the first preview and it was given the most attention during previews.

Here, in fact, is the scene by Brent Barrett and Rachel York, which I see Loopinloop has already linked.  If you did not try his link above, I recommend it. Here it is again. I think Rachel is very good here.

https://www.youtube.com/watch_popup?v=DTSkWZXai9w&list=PL-I3IyTxxSadAPOrpasuA4r2AAXBf157N&index=10

Updated On: 3/18/19 at 05:10 AM

Another positive review. (Scroll down.)

http://www.newnownext.com/halston-designer-tv-miniseries/03/2019/

Extended to June 30

OlBlueEyes said: "

"So convince me that this enormously talented and fearless actress could not even equal Marin Mazzie and Rachel York in playing bawdy and over-the-top if not held back by moral instincts."

It's not about how enormously talented and fearless O'Hara is.  I adore her.

It's about whether the interpretation of Lilli/Kate works in this production.
Even great actors can have misfires.

If you ask me Kelli is wonderful as Kate (the end of the show within a show doesn't work, but that's the fault of the direction and fooling with the lyrics, not Kelli's).

Her Lilli is just not fun enough.  In her zeal to not make Lilli into a bitch, she has become bland.   There is no theatricality, flamboyance or over the topness about her.

To me, that doesn't work.  To others, it does no doubt.