“Anything Goes”

Posted by Gail M. Burns - June 2010

And here we have another vibrant colorful all-singing, all-dancing Mac-Haydn musical smash from Director/Choreographer Kelly L. Shook* and costume designer Jimm Halliday, who dazzled last year with their excellent work on Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat. Its not often the costumes get a mention in my first paragraph, but they really are as much a star of the show as Kelly’s choreography and the polished and entertaining performances by Karla Shook* (Reno Sweeney) and Andrea Doto (Bonnie).

I was tempted to write “they don’t make ‘em like this anymore” but of course that is wrong. They DO make them like this now, they didn’t then. Over the years Anything Goes (isn’t that a perfect Shakespearean portmanteau title, like As You Like It or Much Ado About Nothing?) has morphed into a modern farce laden with the very best show tunes Cole Porter ever wrote all wrapped in reproduction “vintage” tissue and peddled as the genuine article from 1934…NOT! Although I have seen many productions entitled Anything Goes over the course of my career, no two have used exactly the same book or set of songs. But they have all been delightful tap-dancing extravaganzas.

Aboard the U.S.S. America everyone just tap-tap-taps their troubles away. Your Purser (who is not named Gopher) dances during set changes (choreography by Ryan VanDenBoom). An elderly lady in a wheelchair who is miraculously healed at a revival meeting, doesn’t get up and walk, she gets up and dances. Even the stuffy Mrs. Harcourt (Carol Charniga) can be caught cavorting during the big ensemble numbers. When Kelly gets the stage and aisles filled with rapidly tapping bodies clad in Halliday’s bright and sparkly costumes, it is an impressive, even bone rattling, affair as the whole house shakes to the beat.

The plot is very silly and very complicated and signifies absolutely nothing. A bunch of people board the America to sail to England. Among them are the newly engaged Hope Harcourt (Sarah Pigion) and Sir Evelyn Oakleigh (Kevin Gardner) chaperoned by her aforementioned mother. Evangelist-turned-nightclub-singer Reno Sweeney and her Four Angels – Chastity (Cori Cable Kidder), Charity (Brittany Weir), Purity (Amelia Millar), and Virtue (Kellyn Uhl) is making the crossing, and it’s a good thing too or there would be no one to belt out all those Ethel Merman numbers like You’re the Top, I Get a Kick Out of You, and Blow, Gabriel, Blow. Public Enemy Number One aka Snake-Eyes Johnson and Public Enemy # 13 aka Moonface Martin (Kevin Kelley) are escaping from something with their moll, Bonnie. When Snake-Eyes fails to show up, Moonface gives his ticket and passport to Billy Crocker (Andy Geary), assistant to Wall Street big-wig Elijah J. Whitney (Brett Fiegl), who has booked passage. Billy has come down to the dock to see Mr. Whitney off when he realizes that Hope, who he loves madly, is about to be married to a ridiculous Englishman with terrible taste in knee britches and ascots unless he sets sail and breaks up the engagement.

The whistle blows, the Captain (Bob Bonage) gives the signal to weigh anchor, and off they all go – with a couple of Chinamen (Aaron Komo and John Cardenas) thrown in for good measure – on Kevin Gleason’s gleaming nautical set under Andrew Gmoser shimmering aquatic lighting for two hours and forty-five minutes of silliness.

I really can’t think of much that is wrong with this production. Karla Shook, who I have seen play Bonnie at least twice, has earned the star on her dressing room door and is all slink and sass as Reno. This is the second role written expressly for Ethel Merman that Karla is tackling this season at the Mac-Haydn – the title role in Annie Get Your Gun was the first – and I wrote in my review of that show how the photo of Merman on the record jacket of my parents’ cast album always seemed to me everything a woman should be – bold, talented, confident, and well-armed. With Reno Sweeney her arms are the least of her assets, but I get a kick out of seeing these female characters who are unafraid to take charge of their love and sex lives and sing out loud about what they want and how they feel. Karla looks like she enjoys playing them as much as I enjoy watching.

And she’d better hold on to her sequins because Doto is breathing down her neck threatening to steal the show as the bouncy Bonnie. She is the very image of Betty Boop with her sassy short hair and petite frame. Whenever she shimmies into view you know you are in for a good time.

Pigion is excellent as Hope, even at the end of Act I when the script has her suddenly get all uptight and virginal and give Billy the cold-shoulder because he’s too funny. Take some advice from a long-married old broad, Hope, funny stands the test of time a lot better than handsome does, and it’s a sight less boring along the way! But I digress… Pigion looks down-right dowdy in her demure frocks and sings very prettily, but wait until you see her kick up her heels in her wedding gown during the finale.

Geary looks exactly like a John Held drawing of the classic 1920’s hip dude. He got off to a bit of a slow start, but then his performance grew on me and I liked him a lot by the end. I’m still not too sure that he is up to the role vocally, but he cuts a charming figure and hits most of the right notes.

Gardner is an odd choice to play Sir Evelyn. He’s way too young and too sexy for the part. You know the old saying “I’m British, not stupid”? Well, Sir Evelyn is both, and neutered along the way too apparently because except for his tale of a randy roll in the rice with Plum Blossom and the case of “hot pants” that Reno FINALLY gives him, he is completely clueless when it comes to the mating game. Yet while Gardner’s mouth is spouting all these dumb lines his body seems positively afire with desire for the lovely ladies that surround him. Twenty years and a dose of saltpeter might help that.

Kelley is a cuddly criminal and I didn’t think his tap dancing was THAT bad (you should see mine!) Moonface is a wonderful comic role and I don’t think I have ever seen an actor come a cropper in it.

Kidder, Weir, Millar, and Uhl perform impressive simultaneous splits during one number, and lend an air of tawdry pulchritude to every scene in which they appear.

As I was returning to my seat after intermission I saw a woman look at Charniga’s headshot on the wall and refer to her as “the old woman.” “Hey!” I shouted, “Carol Charniga is the busiest ‘old woman’ on stage in these parts!” And I meant it – I’m not going to have my gal Carol talked about like that! I can’t begin to count how many different shows at different theatres I have reviewed her in, but I know from reading the papers that there are plenty more I haven’t seen. Charniga is ALWAYS on and she is always fun and funny whether she’s a tap dancing society matron here or playing a whacked out malt shop-owning biker chick in Footloose, Aunt Eller in Oklahoma!, or the chain-smoking pianist who just appears to play for the guys in The Full Monty.

I had to laugh because I just looked at my review of the 1999 Mac-Haydn production of Anything Goes and see that I recommended allowing Reno’s Angels to take the costume designer out into the woods and kill him. That designer was NOT Jimm Halliday! Halliday’s costumes are a festive riot of red, white and blue with a dash of aquamarine thrown in because this is, after all, a naughty nautical romp. The swish and sway and sparkle. The hip pleat on the Angels’ tap pants provide an extra drum roll with every bump and grind, and in the second act Mrs. Harcourt appears to have absconded with every fake pearl to be found in Columbia County. And the tripe threat costume Karla wears at the top of Act II that morphs seamlessly from demure day dress to evangelical choir robe to slit-up-to-there red sequins is a wonder. It is these little extra bits of “oomph!” that separate the men from the boys in the realm of spectacular costume design, and Halliday, who just won the Helen Hayes Award for his costumes for the Kennedy Center production of Ragtime, is definitely running with the Big Dogs now!

Josh D. Smith is the musical director, but until the Mac gets that synthesizer on some setting other than roller rink (or is it funeral parlor?) the instrumental music will never sound as good as I am sure the musicians generating it are. I just grit my teeth through the overture and wait for the singing to start. The singing always helps me forget.

This really is fun for the whole family. It looks great, it sounds good (after the overture), and it puts the “live” back into live theatre. There is just nothing as exciting as being that close to that many dancing feet. You gotta go.

Anything Goes runs through June20 at the Mac-Haydn Theatre on Rt. 203 in Chatham, NY. The show runs just under three hours with one intermission and is suitable for all ages. Performances are: first week: Thursday at 2 and 8, Friday at 8, Saturday at 4 and 8 and Sunday at 2 and 7 p.m.; second week: Wednesday at 2 and 8, Thursday and Friday at 8, Saturday at 4 and 8 and Sunday at 2 and 7 p.m.

Tickets are $28 and $27; $26 for all matinee seats; children under 12, $12.00. Discounts are available for groups and senior citizens and Mac-Haydn tickets are available at the ½ TIX Booths. Master Card and Visa accepted. No cancellations or refunds. Call 518-392-9292 for information and reservations. See more Mac-Haydn news and information at www.machaydntheatre.org.

* Once again, the Shook sisters will be referred to by their first names – Kelly and Karla – in this review because there’s just no other way to distinguish them without using extremely cumbersome English. Of course in this production we also have actor Kevin Kelley, who I will be referring to by his last name, so watch carefully to see which Kelly/Kelly I am referring to. I can’t call Kelley Kevin because of actor Kevin Gardner…SIGH!

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