Anything Goes At The Shaw Festival
Anything Goes, directed and choreographed by Kimberley Rampersad is yet another musical comedy triumph for the Shaw Festival. Rampersad and the Festival are most definitely on a roll.
Rampersad seems to have made a decision to foster a troupe that can tap dance like nobody’s business. Her success in that endeavor is on ample display in this revival of Anything Goes and is one of the main reasons to book your tickets immediately.
Anything Goes, with music and lyrics by Cole Porter, is ostensibly a 1934 musical treasure, which may conjure visions of Busby Berkeley and early Fred Astaire. What you will see on the Shaw’s Festival Theatre stage, however, is of a much more recent vintage.
For the record, the Shaw programme credits the original book to P. G. Wodehouse, Guy Bolton and Howard Lindsay and Russel Crouse. (The latter two reworked the book by Woodhouse and Bolton shortly before the original opened.) Then there is an acknowledgement of a “new book” by Timothy Crouse (Russel’s son) and John Weidman. They cobbled that together for the 1987 revival. Is that the version now on display? Maybe. According to Wikipedia, there are five extant versions of the libretto. But, y’know, I really don’t care. They had me at Cole Porter.
Most of the madcap action in Anything Goes takes place aboard the ocean liner SS American en route to Europe (the ingenious, multi-level, revolving set by Cory Sincennes makes a major contribution).
The passenger list reads like a who’s who of 1930s musical comedy types. Fledgling stockbroker Billy Crocker (Jeff Irving) is a stowaway hoping to save his beloved, Hope Harcourt (Celeste Catena), from a marriage to the fatuous Lord Evelyn Oakleigh (Allan Louis) arranged by her social climbing mother Evangeline (Sharry Flett). Also on board and squiring Evangeline is Billy’s boss, Wall Street kingpin Elisha Whitney (Shawn Wright). Adding to the mix is a criminal element in the form of Public Enemy 13, Moonface Martin (Michael Therriault) and his moll Erma (Kristi Frank). The ship’s captain (David Adams) is hard pressed to keep everything under control.
With the exception of one member of the ensemble whom I felt was miscast, they all acquit themselves admirably.
The most famous name in the cast list, of course, is Reno Sweeney (Mary Antonini). She is a former evangelist turned torch-song-singing cabaret star and to my mind one of the most unique characters in the 30s musical pantheon. Sweet on Billy she winds up with a Lord.
Reno Sweeney is the undisputed star role in Anything Goes – she’s been played by Ethel Merman, Patti LuPone, Leslie Uggams, Mitzi Gaynor, and Sutton Foster to name a few – and Antonini slips into the role as if it was tailor made for her.
In addition to being quite the looker, she’s a terrific singer and she can tap dance up a storm. Ah, tap! The American musical lost something when tap gave way to more balletic intervals and jazz dance – not that there’s anything wrong with all that jazz!
Rampersad makes an eloquent case for bringing back tap in two all-out show-stopping numbers, the eponymous “Anything Goes” and “Blow Gabriel Blow.”
Of course, the other major star of the show is Cole Porter, whose lyrics are still among the wittiest ever penned. Like all great art they have an uncanny way of seeming of the moment even 90-some years after they were written.
Consider this lyric from “Anything Goes” – “The world has gone made today/ And good’s bad today/ And black’s white today/ And day’s night today.” It has an oddly contemporary ring to it, no?
Paul Sportelli has contributed crackerjack musical direction and the sound design by Corey MacFayden and Kaitlyn MacKinnon for once adds rather than detracts from the overall effect. Well done!
Rampersad’s production of Anything Goes is one of the few shows these days that actually deserves the standing ovation it receives. I wonder if Shaw will be tempted to extend it into the winter season as they did My Fair Lady last season.
Anything Goes continues at the Festival Theatre through October 4, 2025. For more information and to purchase tickets visit the Shaw Festival website.
Footnote: Canadians (and more than a few visiting Americans) may be puzzled by Elisha Whitney’s bull dog and the way he bursts forth with “Boola boola.”
Elisha, you see, is a Yale man, as was Cole Porter, which I suspect is why this bit found its way into the book of Anything Goes. The bull dog is the university’s mascot and the inane ditty “Boola Boola,” often erroneously attributed to Porter, is sung at football games. What is indisputably the work of Porter, composed when he was an undergraduate, is the equally inane “Yale Fight Song,” featuring the immortal lyric “Bulldog, bulldog / Bow wow wow / Eli Yale.”
Footnote: There is some dispute as to why Lindsay and Crouse were called in to rework the original book by Wodehouse and Bolton. One version has it that a recent maritime disaster rendered the original premise of the show, which involved a shipwreck, in poor taste. The other version has it that the original book was simply a mess. It would be fun to see a fully mounted staging of the original. Perhaps some university group will take it on as a matter of theatrical archaeology.
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