Kiss Me, Kate
Score: Cole Porter; Book: Bella and Samuel Spewack . At: Circle Theatre at The Performance Center, 1010 W. Madison, Oak Park. Phone: 708-660-9540; $22-$26 Runs through: Jan. 30
The Music Man
Score/Book: Meredith Willson At: Marriott Theatre, 10 Marriott, Lincolnshire. Phone: 847-634-0200; $40-$48 ( plus handling fees ) . Runs through: Jan. 9
Broadway revivals of The Music Man and Kiss Me, Kate were the main competition vying for the Best Musical Revival Tony Award in the year 2000 ( the latter was the winner ) . Ten years later, both shows are playing outside Chicago with The Music Man parading around the Marriott Theatre in Lincolnshire, while an Oak Park-relocated Circle Theatre puckers up to Kiss Me, Kate.
Now it's not really fair to compare these productions, especially since The Music Man is a big-budgeted Equity affair while Kiss Me, Kate features non-professional performers. But the strengths and weaknesses in the writing of these two golden-age musicals becomes easily apparent after seeing both in quick succession.
One would think that Cole Porter's 1948 score and a Baltimore backstage theater setting would make Kiss Me, Kate a more sophisticated show over the small-town Iowa setting of Meredith Willson's 1957 show The Music Man. But in terms of overall construction, Kiss Me, Kate has one foot stuck back in the plot-less revues of the 1930s while The Music Man confidently stands as a fully integrated musical in the best tradition of Rodgers and Hammerstein.
Kiss Me, Kate is a mishmash of brilliant individual numbers ( which don't always further the plot like "Brush Up Your Shakespeare" ) and a flimsy script to hang those on. To make Kiss Me, Kate work, you need supremely talented and charismatic performers in a beautiful production. But Circle Theatre fails on multiple counts.
Andy Baldeschweiler is woefully miscast as the romantic lead, Fred, who portrays Petruchio in the jazzy version of Shakespeare's The Taming of the Shrew. Baldeschweiler has all the swagger of a timid accountant with insecure vocal technique instead of a lusty and egotistical actor/director who is confident to initially pursue the ditzy ingénue of Lois ( Rachel Quinn ) and to outwit his fiery ex-wife Lillie ( Jennie Sophia ) .
Matters aren't helped by the overextended director/set designer Bob Knuth, whose mediocre production design fails to live up to his previous glories at Circle's former Forest Park home. ( No doubt the company is still adjusting to its bigger space. )
Circle's Kiss Me, Kate only truly comes to life during Kevin Bellie's big choreographed production numbers and whenever the gangsters of John Roeder and Tommy Bullington get to ham it up as tough guys transformed by theatrical art.
The Music Man may be focused on a film-flam salesman ( a very affable Bernie Yvon as Harold Hill ) , but it's also about how the arts truly enrich a small-minded and stubborn Iowa town. Director Gary Griffin's picture-postcard perfect staging of The Music Man for the Marriott Theatre reinforces this idea with every high-stepping number and line of heartfelt dialogue.
You won't see a Music Man of this high caliber for some time, so my advice is to drop your big-city pretensions and cozy up to Meredith Willson's sunny optimism of small-town life at the Marriott right away.
