LOUISE GREENBERG

MY REVIEW

On the 27^th February we went to see ‘Kiss Me, Kate’ at The Old Vic Theatre. This musical is Cole Porter’s version of the ‘Taming of the Shrew’. It was directed by Trevor Nunn. ‘Kiss Me Kate’ is based on a play within a play and is centred mainly on the two characters Lilli Vanessi and Fred Graham who are ex-husband and wife both performing in the new Shakespearean show called “The Shrew”. Throughout the musical we focus on their relationship on and off stage due to Lilli’s mistake when she assumes the flowers she found were sent to her from Fred, when he actually intended to give them to Lois Lane. So when Lilli finds out and tries to leave, she is not allowed to go as Fred’s name was used by someone who came into a lot of debt from gambling, so the First Man and Second Man (who were Mr Hogan’s employees) came to collect the money and the only way Fred could pay the money was if the show lasted one week which meant they had to stop Lilli from leaving with General Harrison Howell. However, the First Man and Second Man found out the Fred hadn’t gambled so they left, which allowed Lilli to leave if she wanted so she did, but almost immediately she realised that over the duration of the opening show she began to love him again and came back so they could be together again because he also loved her still.

I thought the actors started out really well where there were characters coming on to set up the stage which had a double meaning as they were in role setting up for the ‘Shrew’ as well as setting up for ‘Kiss Me Kate’. By starting like this it allowed the audience to warm up to the show and have to settle down whereas in other shows quite often the music and action will normally start up immediately and some members of the audience may miss what’s happening as they get settled and often take a while to stop talking which is distracting for the rest of the audience, whereas this way everyone was ready from the outset.

I thought that the idea of the story was very good, however I believe it is more aimed at an older audience as when we went to see the production, the majority of the audience were older, and in the show a lot of the jokes were said in Shakespearean language which neither I nor most of my class understood.  However, the rest of the audience were almost crying of laughter as they were older and understood the humour. This is very similar to pantomime as some jokes that are used in pantomime have double meanings that the younger audience would not understand but people of our age would. When the characters came off stage from performing the ‘Shrew’ each time their voices changed as they stopped speaking Shakespearean and also their voices became higher than their character’s voices.  I learnt about the depth of detail the actors needed to go into when developing their characters and how that character would interpret the secondary character they were playing.

The props and scenery used in the show were highly effective, especially the ones used in Fred’s and Lilli’s dressing rooms as they had two desks together with a mirror frame where the divide of the wall would be however so that the audience could see both actors and so that we did not see a reflection of the wings at the sides of the stage they did not use an actual frame and instead had to pretend to be looking at themselves and doing their makeup in the mirror when actually they were looking at each other which shows they were really good at staying in character without corpsing. I also liked the use of the doors and how the Second Man had to turn and walk through sideways to fit through it as it was very comical. I thought that they really used the lights and staging well to show the difference from being on stage in their play to being backstage whilst their play was happening as when they were on stage all the lights were up with all the scenery set up by the cast and when they transferred to back stage all the scenery was taken off swiftly by the cast and then they showed the stage door at the side where there was a bright light coming from the stage.  I especially liked how the director chose in the final scene to have a material tree with all the different layers as the leaves/branches that we saw the cast set up on stage themselves, as it was more realistic that they were performing in a show by seeing them do that.

I really liked all of the songs but one of my favourites was ‘Another Op’nin, Another Show’ as it’s a really catchy/fun song and I can relate to the feelings they experienced of nerves and excitement whilst trying to learn so much that it looks like an organised mess, which all the characters managed to portray. I also liked their take on the song, as each character got their own solo/duet lines most of the way through which I thought worked better than the 1999 revival version of it where it was mainly one character’s vocals. Also the version we saw had a lot more dancing and comical situations in it like the choreographer wanted a certain man to do something and then they didn’t or when Lois Lane kept asking everyone if she should say one of her character Bianca’s lines in a certain way which proved to the audience that the only reason she got the job was not because of her talent but because she was sleeping with Fred despite the fact she is in a “relationship” with Bil Calhourn. Although she was playing a terrible actress, Holly Spencer really played the part of Lois Lane well as she had amazing facial expressions which I could see clearly from sitting far away that were almost over the top but it worked well as she was playing a character with that type of personality and mannerism.

Overall I really enjoyed the performance due to the music and the high quality of the acting and dance involved in it, and even though I didn’t always understand the jokes, I was still able to get the gist of what was happening. So if I could have changed anything about the performance I would have less of it spoken in Shakespearean language and make the ending slower as everything happened so quickly it didn’t feel like it should have ended when it did. That said, if I could, I would go and see it again.