As much as I generally love Kiss Me, Kate, I did find this production to be somewhat lackluster. While some of it can be attributed to the extremely truncated rehearsal time that Reprise imposes on their shows (NO ONE can put up a solid production of this or just about any show in two weeks), a lot of it falls on the actors, too. Tom Hewitt, who is usually a joy, felt checked out. Meg hit quite a few not terribly nice notes. The ensemble, with one or two rare exceptions, was relatively blah. The choreography was not impressive, and the pace of the show was painfully slow, causing it to run about 15 minutes too long. The standing ovation the audience gave was decidedly NOT warranted or earned. Needless to say, I remained seated.
About the only bright spot, for me, was Lesli Margherita, who is marvelous ALWAYS. That said, even her performance was not as strong as I've seen her give, and, as another reviewer mentioned, "Wunderbar" was... well... not that wunderbar, in the end. She more than makes up for it with "I Hate Men" and the rest of her performance, but even her talent couldn't make up for the what the show lacked in general.
This isn't the first time I've been disappointed in a Reprise show. For a $70-$80 ticket, the patrons should be guaranteed a more professional looking show. As it is, the production I saw of this when I was in high school was more carefully crafted and rehearsed. I'm going to lay the blame for this one, fully, on Reprise.
(I give the performance 3 stars and recommend it almost exclusively for Margherita's performance, patchy though it may have been. There's a reason she has an Olivier award at home.)
