Class 7: "Stage and Screen"

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7. Stage and Screen. Most of us got to know Broadway musicals through the Hollywood movies made from them a year or two later. But how true are these to the original version? How do the esthetics of film impose themselves on a show written for the live stage? Besides being one of the peaks in the Broadway range, Cole Porter’s Kiss Me, Kate (1948) offers a chance to address these questions. For once, we have a high-quality film of an excellent and utterly faithful stage production (by Michael Blakemore in London in 1999) to set against the iconic movie of 1953, which is also comparatively faithful to the material but tells the story in its own terms.

Kiss Me, Kate is the story of the production of a musical version of The Taming of the Shrew at its first pre-Broadway tryout in Baltimore. The plot, therefore, is a combination of the original Shakespeare with the extra elements that the book writers, Bella and Samuel Spewack, added to it. To get the most out of this class, therefore, it would be helpful to review the two stories; the handouts above include brief summaries. It might also be useful to print out and have available the list of numbers in the original show, and this comparative table of the Act II numbers in each of the versions I shall be showing. rb.

The script, videos, and images will be posted immediately after class.

Handout (flat) Handout (folded) Class Script

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Q AND A

What was the original inspiration for Kiss Me, Kate?
Apparently the show is based upon the stormy relationship of Thirties stars Alfred Lunt and Lynn Fontanne. But it is not a mere roman à clef. The situation of a middle-aged actress leaving the stage for Hollywood but longing to return to the live theater gives a recognizable poignancy to Lilli Vanessi that doesn't need any specific identification.

What is the origin of the physical maltreatment in the play?
I discovered just now that the tradition of giving Petruchio a whip and at one stage having him spank Kate comes from a 1754 adaptation of the Shakespeare play by David Garrick, which was hugely popular and virtually the only version seen on American stages for the next century and a half. You can read more on Wikipedia.

How can you handle the spanking scene in the #MeToo era?
Basically, you can't, as several people pointed out in today's class. The 1999 Blakemore production keeps it in; it takes place about halfway through the relevant clip, but she gives almost as good as she gets, and they bring the curtain in s soon as the actual spanking starts. In the 2019 Roundabout Theatre revival, they both hit each other, though in less sexually-charged ways, and he ends as bruised as her; see further here.

What went wrong at the end of today's class?
It appears that I accidentally touched the "R" key on the computer, which, in the program I use to project my clips, triggers a Random function that plays the items in an arbitrary order. I now know how to rescue it (hit "R" again), but didn't then; thanks for your patience. We did lose the ending of the show in the film version, where Kate's lines are spoken; alas it is no longer available on YouTube. I also enourage you to look at the various versions of the ending of the play I posted below.

VIDEO LINKS

When I prepared this class a few weeks ago, all three versions of the show that we sampled in class were available complete on YouTube. This is still the case with the 2015 Proms performance, but the other two are problematical. The 1953 movie is no longer free, though it can be rented for about $4; I include links below to the trailer and a couple of other scenes we watched in class, plus the notorious spanking scene. The 1999 Blakemore production is free, but in the form of a playlist in 22 sections, which do not often align with the musical numbers; it also has terribly obtrusive subtitles. Go to these links if you prefer to buy it (about $10) or rent it through Amazon Prime.

In the final section, you will find links to excerpts from other sources, plus four different versions of Kate's final monologue in the Shakespeare—one of which is rewritten in modern English, and another imagines a female Petruchia in a matriarchal society. Scratch your head, if you must, but enjoy. rb.

PRODUCTIONS SHOWN IN CLASS
	Movie, 1953	Trailer Spanking scene Brush up your Shakespeare From this Moment On
	Blakemore, 1999	Opening (playlist in 22 sections!) — Wunderbar — So in Love — Act I finale, opening — Act I finale, end, and Act II opening — Remainder of "Too darn hot" — Harrison Howell dialogue — Harrison Howell song — Brush up your Shakespeare — Ending
	London Proms, 2015	Opening (complete show)

ADDITIONAL ITEMS
	Hallmark Hall of Fame, 1959	Complete (though shortened) (B&W, with the original two leads)
	Broadway, 2019	Trailer (a rather different esthetic)
	London, 2024	"Too darn hot"
	Kate's final speech	Elizabeth Taylor (Zeffirelli movie) Thalissa Teixeira, Globe 2024 Shirley Henderson, Shakespeare Retold (in modern prose) Joseph Arkley, RSC 2019 (with genders reversed!)


IMAGES
The thumbnails below cover the slides shown in class, though there may be a few small discrepancies. Click the thumbnail to see a larger image. Click on the right or left of the larger picture to go forward or back, or outside it to close.

Here are brief bios of the artists, composers, and writers considered in the class, listed in order of birth.

	Cole Porter, 1891–1964. American songwriter. Unlike many Broadway composers, Porter wrote not only the music but the lyrics for his songs, and these are notable for their wit, clever rhyming, and encyclopedic range of reference. In addition to numerous standalone songs that became standards, he also wrote musicals such as Ahything Goes (1934), Kiss Me, Kate (1948), and Can-Can (1953).
	Hermes Pan, 1909–90. American choreographer. Born Hermes Joseph Panagiotopoulos, the son of a Greek immigrant, Pan moved from Memphis to NYC with his family. After working as a dancer on Broadway, he moved to Hollywood in 1930. Asked to help Fred Astaire with a few tips from his street days, he formed a creative partnership which lasted the rest of Astaire's career, In all, Pan choreographed 89 films, including Kiss Me, Kate in 1953.
	Bob Fosse, 1927–87. American choreographer. Bob (Robert Louis) Fosse was a pioneering choreographer and later director, noted especially for jazz dance. His choreographic work was first seen on screen in a duet he danced with Carol Haney in Kiss Me, Kate in 1953. He went on to choreograph numerous Broadway shows from The Pajama Game (1954) to Chicago (1975) and direct movies including Sweet Charity (1969) and Cabaret (1972).