| Kiss Me Kate——The greeting card version | |
| Posted by: winters 09:48 am EST 02/24/19 | |
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| Just watched the slimmed down Hallmark Cards version of Kiss Me Kate free on Amazon Prime. Less Kiss me Kate and more Peck on the cheek Kate. It was delightful getting to see Alfred Drake and Patricia Morrison. I had only ever seen Mr. Drake in Gigi and had never seen Ms. Morrison on stage. Their voices in this broadcast, both separately and together, were glorious. I had not realized the beauty of Drake’s singing. The purity of his tones. My favorite part of the broadcast was hearing each sing So In Love. I listened to each more than once, even waking a sleeping husband (soon to be not so in love and kind of cranky having been woken up) so that he could appreciate a near perfect love song. (So In Love and My Heart Is So Full of You remain the most romantic of Broadway love songs.) A fun broadcast but for one issue I had. Julie Wilson as Bianca. I can admit to never having been overwhelmed by her but I had assumed that this was mostly about not having been exposed to her live performances very frequently. Though I can state firmly that without her Legs Diamond would have been painful to sit through. My issue was her over the top performance. No nuance she. Her face muscles were in overdrive every time she sang. The cameras surely picked up on that and I was irritated every time she appeared. The current revival. Saw it last weekend, a very early preview. Found the dancing sloppy, but I will assume that more performances will clean that up. (I will let you guys fight over the issue of...do we allow lapses in performances during previews as they are still pulling things together or we don’t allow this as ticket prices are not less so why accept performances that are less). Ms. O’Hara and Mr. Chase sing well (hearing O’Hara sing the score was my primary reason for going) but needed to ignite some chemistry. Early preview? Stephanie Styles as Bianca did not bring the house down for me. That role has star making potential built right in. Alas not last Sunday. To this day I still speak of how exciting Amy Spangler was in the last revival. Kiss Me Kate can never become P.C. As the source material can never be short of turning each into totally new plays. In this particular case the play/musical can be appreciated in a context of time and place on their own terms. |
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