She’s sort of a compilation of many old movie stars that I grew up watching.
“For me, though, when I read the script, it was crystal clear who she was to me. “The role is written in such a way that anyone can make it their own,” York says. That fidelity to the original period is also reflected in the show’s Art Deco design scheme as well as in the performance of its star. “We did a lot of research into the ’30s trying to find the right sound,” says Marshall, who also directed and choreographed the current Broadway hit “Nice Work If You Can Get It.” “For instance, the angels in ‘Blow Gabriel Blow’ do a little harmony singing that’s very 1930s, very McGuire Sisters, that was not in the 1987 version.” It’s one of the many ways that Marshall put her stamp on the show, even though it mainly hews to the book and song order of the 1987 revival starring Patti LuPone. In the latest version of the musical, this number has been turned into a tap-dance extravaganza. “No one else would dare to write the songs that he did,” Feinstein says.Īll of Porter’s songwriting strengths come together in the title tune of “Anything Goes” with an irrepressible melody and scandalously clever rhymes, as Reno offers her analysis on the evolution of social mores: “When grandmama whose age is 80/ In nightclubs is getting matey/ With gigolos - anything goes.” Porter’s penchant for double-entendre also made his songs the most frankly sexual of his era, even if contemporary mores forced him to keep his own identity as a gay man a secret. “He wrote with great glee and abandon, and he created a buoyancy and joy that really made people feel better about the difficulties of that time,” Feinstein says.
Early hits such as 1928’s “Let’s Do It (Let’s Fall in Love)” reflected the libertine mood of the Jazz Age and when the Great Depression hit, the same sensibility satisfied audiences’ need for escapism. That was a very different perspective from most of his contemporaries, who were raised in very humble economic conditions.”īorn to wealth in Indiana, Porter’s taste for the international high life turned out to be perfect timing. “He had a view of life that was born out of a privileged background,” Feinstein says. Michael Feinstein, a singer and musician who was given a Drama Desk Special Award for his work preserving the Great American Songbook, says Porter’s place in musical-theater history is a reflection of his unique background. And along with Berlin and the Gershwin brothers, he is among the few enduring songwriters from before World War II, when Rodgers and Hammerstein ushered in the so-called Golden Age. He was kind of like the Stephen Sondheim of the ’20s and the ’30s.”Īlong with Sondheim and Irving Berlin, Porter is one of a tiny number of great composer-lyricists in Broadway history, as opposed to the famous songwriting teams. “His melodies were beautiful, first of all, and his lyrics were so smart,” York says. In addition to the title tune and “I Get a Kick Out of You,” the musical farce introduced the playfully self-deprecating “You’re the Top” and the brassy showstopper “Blow Gabriel Blow.” Later versions, on both stage and screen, added numbers such as “It’s De-Lovely,” solidifying the musical’s legacy as a showcase for Porter’s immortal wit and lyricism. The role was created for a 25-year-old Ethel Merman in the original 1934 production. York plays Reno Sweeney, an evangelist-turned-nightclub-diva who finds love on a transatlantic ocean liner.
Taking over for Foster is Rachel York, who has numerous film and TV credits to go along with a Broadway resume that includes “Les Misérables,” “Dirty Rotten Scoundrels” and “Victor/Victoria” (sharing a stage with Julie Andrews). The Roundabout’s touring production of “Anything Goes” visits ASU Gammage in Tempe Tuesday-Sunday, Nov. “The fact that he could write something as ebullient as ‘Anything Goes’ and then write something with such sophisticated longing as ‘I Get a Kick Out of You’ is really amazing,” Marshall says. “With Cole Porter, there’s a combination of the incredibly witty and often naughty lyrics that he wrote, but the music is so achingly beautiful that you know that there was a romantic underneath all that wit,” says Kathleen Marshall, director and choreographer of last year’s Tony Award-winning revival. Instead, the Roundabout Theater Company hired an old-school triple threat, actress Sutton Foster, then sent the production on a time-traveling trip to the re-create the 1930s - or at least the fantasy version that lives on in the effervescent music and lyrics by Cole Porter. More than three-quarters of a century after its Broadway premiere, there was no need for revisionist gimmicks or stunt casting to make a born-again hit out of “Anything Goes.”