Kiss Me, Kate theatre review — a sparkling and subtly tweaked show at London’s Barbican

What to do about The Taming of the Shrew? Even if Shakespeare’s intent was, as some maintain, to expose the ugliness of misogyny, this 1590s comedy still lands heavily, with its depiction, however comic, of domestic abuse and coercive control.

Two new openings in London take starkly different approaches. While the Globe offers a highly stylised staging of the original play, at the Barbican we find Bartlett Sher’s sparkling and subtly tweaked production of another response: the giddy 1948 musical Kiss Me, Kate, led here by Adrian Dunbar (of the BBC’s Line of Duty fame) and terrific Broadway star Stephanie J Block.

Sam and Bella Spewack’s Kiss Me, Kate takes metatheatre both capriciously and seriously. Inspired by the real-life story of squabbling husband and wife actors Alfred Lunt and Lynn Fontanne, it’s a show-within-a-show, set at the Baltimore try-outs for a chaotic, cheesy production of The Taming of the Shrew that reunites producer-director and leading actor Fred Graham (Dunbar) and his ex-wife Lilli Vanessi (Block), with explosive results. Powered by a fast-moving farcical plot and some of Cole Porter’s most sumptuous numbers, including the sultry “Too Darn Hot”, the exquisite “So in Love” and the delightfully silly “Brush Up Your Shakespeare”, it’s well nigh irresistible. 

It’s also one of many classic Broadway musicals that are, in essence, love letters to theatre. But in this case, the love affair — like those of all the characters — is complex. At its heart sits the stubborn problem of Shakespeare’s contentious drama. And even though the musical’s intricate interweaving of backstage and onstage relationships complicates and sends up the original, it still does so through a 1940s lens, not least in its depiction of actress Lois Lane. 

Sher, who is no stranger to tricky revivals, handles this not through wholesale change, but through small, telling shifts and a crisp, ironic take on storyline and characters. There’s no attempt to transpose or update the setting, but the cast introduces a mischievous sense of conspiracy with the audience as we all roll with a comic plot that involves walkouts, mistaken identity and, most incongruously, two stagestruck gangsters parlaying their way into the show. 

Machismo falls flat on its face at every turn. Dunbar’s Fred struggles to maintain order backstage and, onstage as Petruchio, can’t even get his whip to work; Bianca’s suitors caper about in ridiculous Elizabethan costumes trilling “Dick” as they do so; and Georgina Onuorah’s wonderful, shrewdly intelligent Lois turns “Always True to You in My Fashion”, with its troubling #MeToo-like lyrics, into a defiant statement about surviving in a sexist world.

Most significantly, there’s a tweak to the notorious ending of Shrew, in which Kate submits totally to Petruchio. Here what happens between the two leading actors is in direct contrast to that humiliation, with Dunbar’s Fred stepping in to take Lilli’s lines before she has to speak them.    

At the core of this production is Block, who finds a wealth of hurt, fury and love in Lilli. She burns up the stage with her raging solo “I Hate Men”, but is haunting in Porter’s beautiful, melancholic lament of regret “So in Love”. Opposite her, Dunbar has a decent singing voice rather than a great one, but he brings wry charisma and lovely comic timing to the part.   

Charlie Stemp and Jack Butterworth dazzle as Bill Calhoun and Paul respectively, with Butterworth leading the ensemble in a smouldering rendition of “Too Darn Hot”. Hammed Animashaun and Nigel Lindsay bring down the house with their dry, sardonic delivery of “Brush Up Your Shakespeare”. 

It all whizzes along, Michael Yeargan’s evocative revolving set whisking us from backstage to front, so helping to maximise the confusion between on-and offstage emotions. Does it solve all the problems? No. But it’s a shrewd, ironic take and a great deal of fun.

★★★★☆

To September 14, barbican.org.uk