Musical is 'Out of This World'
Play review
By Cary Ginell Soundthink@aol.com

GIVING IT THEIR ALL- Performers, clockwise from top, Richard Israel, Kami Seymour, Jennifer Gordon, Erika Whalen and Jill Townsend appear in the Cole Porter musical "Out of This World." The show was recently presented at the T.O. Civic Arts Plaza.

For Broadway fans tired of seeing the same old big budget blockbuster musicals, the Musical Theatre Guild is just the ticket.

The guild, according to its brochure, specializes in "exploring and preserving works from the musical theatre repertoire that were either forgotten, neglected, or unfairly dismissed." The Toluca Lake-based company staged "Out of This World," one of Cole Porter's most outrageously funny musicals, in the Scherr Forum at the Civic Arts Plaza on April 27.

The show, which originally ran a disappointing 157 performances beginning in December 1950, features one of Porter's most glittering scores; however, the play fell short, mainly due to a much-maligned book, which has since been revised by Greg MacKellan. A CD producer of rare show tunes, MacKellan has also produced another Porter musical, "Jubilee."

"Out of This World" was also a victim of bad timing, going up against five major shows running at the same time: "Guys and Dolls," "Call Me Madam," "The King and I," "Gentlemen Prefer Blondes" and Porter's own "Kiss Me, Kate." No wonder it fell short of expectations.

The Musical Theatre Guild presents its shows as staged readings. There are no elaborate sets, and, although the cast does wear costumes, they are permitted to carry their scripts with them onstage. The format emphasizes the script and the score while avoiding timeconsuming production values. This enables the actors to learn their parts in a weekend instead of over several weeks or months.

The play begins with the introduction of the main characters, a group of dysfunctional Greek gods headed by the lecherous, skirt-chasing Jupiter (David Holmes). Acting as a Greek chorus is fleet-footed Mercury, played by Richard Israel, who steals every scene he is in. Israel also has a magnificent tenor voice; his crisp, succinct singing worked best on the hilarious patter song, "They Couldn't Compare to You."

The other gods include Diana (Kami Seymour), the statuesque goddess of the hunt; Night (an elegant Erika Whalen), the glamorous goddess of darkness; and Venus (the buxom Melissa Fahn), the giggly goddess of love. The god of the sun, Apollo (Kevin McMahon), has become an overthetop gay stereotype, a character that was probably not so broadly played in the conservative '50s. The sibling rivalry between Apollo and Mars (Sam Zeller), the macho god of war, provided plenty of material for a running gag.

The pivotal role of Juno, Jupiter's long-suffering wife, was winningly played by Marsha Kramer. In the original cast, Charlotte Greenwood, the highkicking spinster of many a Broadway show, came out of retirement to play the role, which was viewed as an inspired choice. Kramer's best moment came when she sang the uproarious "Nobody's Chasing Me," one of Porter's classic "list" songs.

The farce begins early, with the gods wondering why they have Roman names when they are dressed as Greeks.

The spare plot deals with Jupiter falling in love with a mortal, the preening Hollywood starlet Helen Vance (Teri Bibb) who is engaged to screenwriter Art O'Malley (Damon Kirsche). The shapeshifting Jupiter assumes the form of O'Malley in order to take advantage of Vance.

Hollywood takes as many hits as mythology as the show progresses, zeroing in on gossip columnists, gangsters and dealmaking. As Minerva, the goddess of reason and enlightenment, Jennifer Gordon exclaims, "Don't make me go to Los Angeles!"

Of course, the strengths of the show are the marvelous Cole Porter songs, the most famous of which are "From This Moment On," which had been cut from the original production and inserted into "Kiss Me, Kate," and the wistful "Use Your Imagination," the latter sung as a duet by Mercury and Helen. Careful listeners might notice references to other Porter songs, such as "Too Darn Hot" and "Begin the Beguine."

The Musical Theatre Guild promises an outstanding season of "second tier" Broadway classics for the upcoming 2008-09 season.

Broadway fans should look forward to next year's lineup, which includes Cy Coleman and Dorothy Fields' "Seesaw," Frank Loesser's "The Most Happy Fella," Burton Lane and Yip Harburg's "Finian's Rainbow," and John Kander and Fred Ebb's "Kiss of the Spider Woman."

For details, visit the website www.musicaltheatreguild.com.