Anything Goes (New Broadway Cast Recording (1987))

Album review

Cole Porter's 1934 Broadway musical Anything Goes was one of his more celebrated efforts, throwing off such standards as "I Get a Kick Out of You" and "You're the Top" in addition to the title tune, and it was adapted for film twice, in 1936 and 1956. Strangely, it did not attract a notable stage revival until 1962, when a version ran Off-Broadway and produced a cast album (the first, since there was no original Broadway cast album). Then, it took another 25 years for a full-scale Broadway revival when a revised version opened at the Vivian Beaumont Theatre in Lincoln Center on October 19, 1987, starring Patti LuPone as Reno Sweeney. The script had been redone by John Weidman and Timothy Crouse (Crouse was the son of Russel Crouse, one of the original librettists), and the score had been altered, with some songs dropped and some interpolated from other Porter scores. As in the 1956 film and the 1962 revival, "It's De-Lovely" from Red, Hot and Blue was included, and "Friendship" from DuBarry Was a Lady was used, as it had been in 1962. In addition, there was "Easy to Love," a song actually written for Anything Goes, although it was cut and later included in the film Born to Dance. Those were all well-known Porter songs. More obscure were "I Want to Row on the Crew," which Porter wrote for a college show at Yale in 1914, and "Goodbye, Little Dream, Goodbye," which first appeared in the British musical O Mistress Mine. Also, several songs were reassigned from one character to another, so that, for example, "The Gypsy in Me," sung by Hope Harcourt in 1934, was given to her fiancé, Lord Evelyn Oakleigh (Anthony Heald), a character who did not sing at all originally, and "Buddie, Beware," originally sung by Reno Sweeney, went to a newly created, or at least newly named, character, Erma (Linda Hart). (A similar character in the original version was called Bonnie.) The cast did a wonderful job with the songs. LuPone, a Tony winner for Evita, shone on "I Get a Kick Out of You," "You're the Top," "Friendship," "Anything Goes," and "Blow, Gabriel, Blow." Howard McGillin, as the male lead, Billy Crocker, joined her on "You're the Top," sang "Easy to Love" alone, and paired with the ingénue Hope Harcourt (Kathleen Mahoney-Bennett) on "It's De-Lovely" and "All Through the Night." Bill McCutcheon, as Moonface Martin (Public Enemy Number 13), teamed with LuPone on "Friendship" and had his own showcase with "Be Like the Bluebird," winning a Tony for his trouble. And the show itself won the Tony for best revival, going on to play 804 performances, which was 384 more than the original production. The cast album, which began, like the show, with a snatch of an actual Cole Porter recording, was the best rendering of the show released up to its time.

© William Ruhlmann /TiVo