©Broadway.com
Oct. 30, 2001


Red, Hot and Blue
Review by Ken Mandelbaum

Last fall, Paper Mill Playhouse presented Chita Rivera in the Cole Porter-Howard Lindsay-Russel Crouse Anything Goe, so it’s entirely appropriate that Paper Mill is now offering Red, Hot and Blue!. The 1936 show was specifically fashioned as a follow-up to the 1934 Anything Goes, with the same composer, librettists, director (Lindsay), producer (Vinton Freedley), theatre (the Alvin), and leading lady (Ethel Merman). Merman’s Anything Goes co-stars, William Gaxton and Victor Moore, were sought to repeat as well, but their roles went to Bob Hope and Jimmy Durante (Vivian Vance was also in the cast).

Red, Hot and Blue! lasted a then-decent 183 performances, but was not nearly as strong as its predecessor, with a much weaker plot and songs less related to character and situation. As was the case with so many musicals of the time, it was simply a vehicle that allowed audiences to take in three stars for six months, providing those headliners with workable comic bits and nifty numbers, surrounded by a gaudy production. Its best-known songs are “It’s De-Lovely” (often heard in revivals of Anything Goes), “Ridin’ High” (recently sung on Broadway by Melissa Errico in High Society), and the torchy “Down in the Depths on the 90th Floor.”

The show has had few significant revivals, so a new version was recently devised in hopes of giving it a renewed stage career. Last fall, Goodspeed Musicals presented the revision (exclamation point removed, and billed on the program cover, but not the title page, as The New Red, Hot and Blue), adapted and directed by Michael Leeds, and it’s that version now being presented at Paper Mill, with leading lady Debbie Gravitte the only lead held over from Goodspeed.

The new version drops five of the original songs, restores one (“Goodbye, Little Dream, Goodbye,” also featured in the Lincoln Center Theater (Anything Goes), and adds “It Ain’t Etiquette” (Du Barry Was a Lady), “You’ve Got That Thing” (Fifty Million Frenchmen), “You Do Something to Me” (Fifty Million Frenchmen), “I’m Throwing a Ball Tonight” (Panama Hattie), “Just One of Those Things” (Jubilee), “Most Gentlemen Don’t Like Love” (Leave It to Me), and “I’ve Got You Under My Skin” (Born to Dance).

Some years ago I read the original script, so I can attest that the new book follows the outlines of the original plot fairly closely. The lady in question is still Nails O’Reilly Duquesne, former manicurist, now wealthy widow attempting to raise funds for ex-cons. Nails carries a torch for her lawyer, Bob Hale, but selflessly decides to devote the fund-raising contest she’s running to finding Bob’s long-lost flame, recognizable only by the imprint left on her posterior when she accidentally sat on a waffle iron.

Red, Hot and Blue! was an attempt at political satire, with jabs at the U.S. Treasury, Senate, Supreme Court, and penal system; some of that remains, with Leeds removing topical references that would mean nothing to contemporary audiences. He’s kept many of the low, double-entendre jokes, cutting a couple of the more politically incorrect ones. Leeds has, of course, added material to help work in the interpolated numbers. And his biggest alteration is removing a dull pair of ingenues--Junior League president Anne and Sonny, manager of Nails’ charity--and replacing them with a more interesting couple, a debutante and her butler/thief love interest.

On the evidence here, Red, Hot and Blue! may not have been worth resuscitating. The plot remains a burden, the jokes are of the hoariest variety, and the script is only attenuated by the addition of so many standards that don’t really function. The result is mild and insufficiently hilarious, pleasant enough for one act, after that a chore.

Of course, the original wasn’t much either, but it did have those stars. While it’s unfair to ask contemporary performers to equal three of the most remarkable self-creations of their era, the Paper Mill leads are all well-suited to their roles. Jim Walton is an adept period stylist, equally at home in the scenes, songs, and Andy Blankenbuehler’s competent choreography. In the Durante role of prison-loving Policy Pinkle, Bruce Adler, who appeared with Walton in the Paper Mill Crazy for You and was Moonface opposite Rivera in Anything Goes, is a pro at this sort of thing, able to cope with the stalest comic routines. Sleekly skilled singer-dancer Michael Gruber is the ex-criminal in love with the society lady.

For two reasons, I wasn’t sorry I attended. If the neglect of Red, Hot and Blue! is understandable, it’s rare to have the opportunity to witness a full-scale mounting (as opposed to concert version) of a pre-Kiss Me, Kate Porter show other than Anything Goes. Paper Mill deserves credit for taking up a rarely-performed piece from Porter’s heyday and giving it about as elaborate a new production as it’s likely to get (one presumably larger than the Goodspeed incarnation).

And Gravitte’s vocals are pure pleasure. The evening comes to life with her “Down in the Depths,” she’s grand in “Ridin’ High” and “I’m Throwing a Ball Tonight,” and she makes fine music with Walton in “It’s De-Lovely.” You get two top-notch female voices in “Goodbye, Little Dream, Goodbye,” with Gravitte joined by the debutante of Felicia Finley, soon to become Amneris in Broadway’s Aida and somewhat wasted here.

As long as Gravitte was singing, I had a good time. This production isn’t likely to convince anyone that Red, Hot and Blue will ever be as stageworthy as Anything Goes, but it’s at least collectible.


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