Porchlight Theatre’s Production of “Anything Goes” — Heaven Knows You’ll Want to Go

The nearly flawless Porchlight Music Theatre production of Cole Porter’s Anything Goes now playing at the Ruth Page Center for the Arts is a classic example of how lightness, silliness and absurdity in the theatre can nonetheless, at times, be profoundly pleasurable.  

There is something soul-satisfying, in particular, about hearing an expert cast recreate with brio those famous songs from the Great American Songbook — “Anything Goes,” “You’re the Top,” and “I Get a Kick Out of You.”  What makes these clever but heartfelt tunes so especially enjoyable is the rhymes that in every case manage to “stick the landing”:

“You’re the top

You’re Mahatma Gandhi

You’re the top

You’re Napoleon Brandy

You’re the purple light

Of a summer night in Spain

You’re the National Gallery

You’re Garbo’s salary

You’re cellophane!”

Even if crinkly cellophane is not exactly a hot item any more — it’s been largely replaced by its non-biodegradable descendant, Saran Wrap — and Greta Garbo’s salary today would barely cover Greta Gerwig’s per diem, nonetheless the song is as fresh-sounding today as it was in Porter’s day.  So, too, the other famous songs in this production, “All Through the Night,” “Gypsy in Me,” “Blow, Gabriel, Blow,” “It’s Friendship,” (“if they ever put a bullet through your brain, I’ll complain”), and of course the famous title song: 

“Anything goes.

The world has gone mad today and good’s bad today

And black’s white today, and day’s night today

And that gent today you gave a cent today

Once had several chateaux.”

Even with its dated references to the Great Depression and busted billionaires (the musical was first produced in 1934, inspired by an idea from producer Vinton Freedly, who himself was busted flat and on the run from his creditors) the lyrics today still resonate. Who hasn’t felt, for example, that “the world’s mad today…and black’s white today”?  

The show, directed by Michael Weber and choreographed by Tammy Mader,  “rhymes” in another way as well.  It’s set on an ocean liner steaming from New York to London and features a handsome young castaway, Billy Crocker, who’s infatuated with a charming young heiress, Hope Harcourt, who, despite her own attraction to Billy, is about to be married for purely fiscal reasons to a comically foppish British nobleman named Sir Evelyn Oakleigh.  If Evelyn wasn’t the brainchild of P.G. Wodehouse, one of the writers of the original book of “Anything Goes,” I’d be gobsmacked; Wodehouse’s novels and short stories — think “Jeeves and Bertie Wooster” — were filled with similar twits and well-meaning upper-class ninnies.  I’d also bet that the name “Evelyn” was Wodehouse’s affectionate nod to his admirer and fellow British novelist Evelyn Waugh.  There’s also a passing reference, no doubt inserted by Porter himself, to Porter’s friend and fellow composer Noel Coward. 

Meanwhile, the brassy nightclub singer Reno Sweeney is hopelessly in love with Billy, who’s accidentally taken on the identity of a famous gangster, Snake Eyes Johnson, who is Public Enemy Number 1.  Also on board is an also-ran racketeer, Public Enemy Number 13 Moonface Martin, who is disguised as a minister, and Billy’s half-blind boss, who is teetering between a financial windfall and fatal ruin, depending on Billy’s ability to sell the shares of a certain stock he owns.  The boss, Elisha (“Eli”) Whitney, is attracted to Hope’s mother, Evangeline, and Evelyn eventually becomes moony over Reno. The rhyming I referred to earlier is the delightful way all three of the mismatched couples separate, sort themselves out, and end up with the ones they love. 

The nearly impeccable cast is headlined by the cabaret star Meghan Murphy as the larger-than-life Reno Sweeney, Jackson Evans as a zanily limber Lord Oakleigh, Steve McDonagh as an exceedingly droll Moonface Martin, Luke Nowakowski as Billy Crocker, Emma Ogea, who has a lovely voice, as Hope Harcourt, and Anthony Whitaker as the Rudy Giuliani-like Eli Whitney.  (Were the creators of Anything Goes having a little laugh at the expense of the inventor of the cotton gin by naming this gin-loving character after him?)

The music director is Jeffrey D. Kmiec.  It should be noted that some of the songs in this production, as in an earlier revival in the 80s featuring a new book by Timothy Crouse and John Weidman, have been borrowed from other Cole Porter shows, but I can’t imagine Porter objecting too strenuously to what amounts to a “Greatest Hits of Cole Porter” production, nor to the notion that his creation is as vivid and lively today as it was 90 years ago. 

I have provided only the barest outline of the sometimes-chaotic plot, which comes together so neatly and satisfyingly at the end that we could only dream our own disordered existences could be so readily resolved.  While not by any means an absurdist play, Anything Goes is certainly wonderfully absurd, and, because it is so expertly crafted by Porter and Porchlight alike, ridiculous in only the best possible sense of the term.  As a tonic for our own crazy times, I can think of nothing more pleasing than this sunny and funny revival of Cole Porter’s work of lighthearted genius. 

Anything Goes is playing through February 25 at the Ruth Page Center for the Arts, 1016 N. Dearborn Street in Chicago.  Tickets are available at PorchlightMusicTheatre.org or by calling 773-777-9884.

Photos by Liz Lauren