Theater Reviews—

Porter Is Perfect For The Stage At Goodspeed

By Julie Stern

EAST HADDAM — Last week a student confided to me that she had learned to hate poetry by taking a poetry course. This is one of the dangers of education. I too remember well learning to hate all poetry and especially Shakespeare after a year of being exposed in the eighth grade to the kind of teacher who can make you hate anything.

Anyhow, the thought occurred, as we were listening to a rendition of “Just One of Those Things” during the current Goodspeed production of Red, Hot and Blue, that the way to teach anyone to appreciate poetry is to introduce them to the work of Cole Porter.

Written in 1936 by Cole Porter, along with Howard Lindsay and Russel Crouse, this work was designed specifically to repeat the success of the 1934 hit Anything Goes by showcasing the music and lyrics of Porter, and the Broadway star Ethel Merman.

The plot is ridiculous — a cockamamie afterthought in which a sexy manicurist-turned-rich widow arranges for the parole of six convicts so that they can operate a lottery which will turn up the missing long-lost sweetheart of the manicurist’s lawyer. The senate finance committee is hot for the lottery because the senators hope to gain half the proceeds in the form of taxes. The paroled convicts become the darlings of the society dames with whom the manicurist, Nails Duquesne, now socializes. Only the lawyer is less than happy because now that he knows Nails he doesn’t want to find his lost sweetheart, Baby. He’s in love with his client.

Of course none of that matters. The show was a vehicle for its stars — Ethel Merman as Nails, Jimmy Durante as Policy Pinkle, the con-man from the Ozarks who knows how to organize games of chance, and a then-relatively unknown comic named Bob Hope as the lawyer, Bob Hale. The original score included “It’s De-lovely” and “Ridin’ High.”

Now, 64 years later, director Michael Leeds has added others from the Porter canon including “I’ve Got You Under My Skin” and the aforementioned, “Just One of Those Things.”

In addition, in the person of Debbie Gravitte as Nails, Goodspeed has come up with a performer who seems like a cross between me Merman and Bette Midler — a larger-than-life dynamo who fills the stage and radiates bubbling laughter that is contagious.

The convicts are adorable in their prison stripes and it is easy to see why the society dames fall for them. Ben Lipitz is particularly winsome as Policy. Also very good was Billy Hartung as Fingers, a semi-reformed pickpocket working as Nails’ butler.

This kind of show is well suited for Goodspeed, which can give it the polished perfection it deserves. The music, the dancing, the silliness is all highly enjoyable and almost like being in a time warp, as if it were back in the Thirties and we were being treated to those uniquely American phenomena in their prime.

(Red, Hot and Blue! continues through December 31 with performances every Wednesday through Sunday evening, and matinees each Saturday, Sunday and Wednesday. Contact Goodspeed Opera House’s box office at 860/873-8668 for details.)