Kiss Me, Kate

A musical version of Shakespeare's Taming of the Shrew. I was hoping the meta twist of it being about the production team (with a focus on its two divorced co-stars) would temper the misogyny of the original play, but No. That was in vain.

"I Hate Men."
(That's a song she sings. Seriously.)

The shrew in the play within the musical is a beast, screaming and grunting with barely a coherent word to contribute. At some point, the actress gets spanked repeatedly on stage. When she declares she's had enough and wants to leave, she is coerced into finishing the performance by gangsters. Yet somehow, she still falls back in love with her boor of an ex-husband. It's awful.

The music on the other hand, is strangely winning. The lyrics are clever and fun and just a little cheeky. (I may have been willing it to be more cheeky than it actually was.) The song "Tom, Dick, or Harry" epitomizes the show for me:


In this song, Bianca the younger sister is being wooed by her three suitors and is quite open about the fact that she just wants to marry and will marry ANYONE. It's honest. There are readings to be made here about how Bianca is just as much a caricature as her shrewish sister Kate (then again, all the characters are caricatures, really) but you can see the ownership of her sexuality that Kate doesn't have. Kate has to be taken down because she dared to be shrewish and forward; Bianca just gets to be.

The part of Bianca/her "actress" Lois Lane has to be my favorite. She's probably the most honest portrayal here, of a performer who loves to dance, who loves men, and who loves her Lucentio/Bill Calhoun.

The other thing the number has going for it is the dancing, which is fabulous. And I say that as someone who doesn't care about tap dancing at all-- this show made me care about tap dancing very much. It's wonderfully incorporated in the performances.

Lastly, it's interesting to contemplate the performance of masculinity by Howard Keel in the lead role of Fred Graham/Petrucchio.

"I'm a man."

Howard Keel is this big, burly guy with a big, burly voice. And he sings with it. And trots around the stage in a weird sock-like outfit. And does horrible things to his co-star/ex-wife. Talk about being it all.