PATRICIA C. SYAK | Symphony notes 'Kiss Me Kate' to bring delight, humor to Powers Auditorium

"Kiss Me Kate," the delightfully raucous Tony award-winning musical with hit after hit by the great American songwriter Cole Porter, comes to Powers Auditorium for two performances Sept. 29 and 30. Performances begin at 8 p.m.
After having collaborated with Same and Bella Spewick on "Leave It To Me," Cole Porter reunited with the husband and wife team for "Kiss Me Kate" after stagehand-turned-producer Saint Subber presented the idea of a musical based on Shakespeare's comedy "The Taming of the Shrew."
Subber's idea for the play was germinated during his stagehand career when he observed that during a production of "The Taming of the Shrew," its stars Alfred Lunt and Lynn Fontanne (husband and wife in real life) quarreled in private as much as did the characters they were portraying in the play.
"Kiss Me Kate" action takes place before, during and after an American company's performance of Shakespeare's "The Taming of the Shrew" -- backstage and onstage.
The plot
The plot of Shakespeare's comedy, in which the manly, forceful Petruchio tames the temperamental and beautiful Katherine, and Lucentio woos Katherine's younger sister Bianca, is paralleled in the private lives of the actors.
Lois Lane (Bianca), in provocative clothes and endlessly chewing gum, is continually trying to get hold of a dollar or two to extricate the small-time actor Bill Calhoun (Lucentio) from his financial difficulties.
The stylist Lilli Vanessi (Katherine) carries on with a wealthy, middle-aged admirer because Fred Graham (Petruchio), her divorced husband -- who can never resist the flattery of the chorus girls -- takes too long to discover that it is really Lilli whom he loves. Two amiable gangster types provide the crazy comedy.
Faced with the challenge of the new form of musical theatre created by Rodgers and Hammerstein, Cole Porter responded brilliantly, writing one of the greatest of all musical comedy scores and cleverly interspersing lyrics taken from Shakespearean text with Broadway-flavored songs for the actors offstage.
For instance, Porter's lyrics in musical number sung during "The Taming of the Shrew" onstage performance, he made use of Shakespeare's line "I come to wive it wealthily in Padera" with the song "Where Is The Life That Late I Led" and the modern sentiment "Why Can't You Behave" from the heroine's closing lines. "So in Love," "Too Darn Hot," and "Always True to You in My Fashion" were assigned to the backstage occurrences.
Composers' uniqueness
Porter is a unique figure among Broadway composers.
The sophistication of his songs is a direct reflection of his own way of life.
Few composers of light music offered such subtle and complicated harmonies -- few lyricists to such wittily sophisticated lines.
"Kiss Me Kate" sparkles with wit, romance and such unforgettable Porter tunes as "Another Op'nin', Another Show," "Why Can't You behave," "Wunderbar," "So in Love," "We Open in Venice," "I Hate Man," "Too Darn Hot," "Where Is the Life That Late I Led," "Always True to You in My Fashion" and "Brush Up Your Shakespeare."
"Kiss Me Kate" is the opening production in the Broadway Series presented by First Place Bank Community Foundation in conjunction with the Youngstown Symphony Society.
Tickets are available online at www.youngstownsymphony.com or by calling the Symphony Center box office at (330) 744-0264.
XPatricia C. Syak is executive director of the Youngstown Symphony Society.