Kate Marrily as Ninotchka and Kevin Kraft as Steve Canfield
(Photo credit: Richard Portantiere)
Dramatic stories either feature action or character. Cole Porter’s last Broadway musical, Silk Stockings, like Ninotchka, the famous Ernst Lubitsch film it was based on, is about a slick, fast-talking American man thawing out a stiff frozen Russian woman. This is why the original film needed such personalities as Greta Garbo and Melvyn Douglas, and the film version of the musical, Fred Astaire and Cyd Charisse. Musicals Tonight!’s concert staging of this rarely seen 1955 musical ironically has the supporting cast outshine the leads.
One of six Porter musicals set in Paris, Silk Stockings seems slow because little happens in the libretto by George S. Kaufman, Leueen MacGrath (the second Mrs. Kaufman), and Abe Burrows which updates the original 1939 story to the Cold War. It all depends on the transformation of its heroine, Comrade Ninotchka, from a Soviet iceberg into a warm loving vital woman, precipitated by the seductions of both Paris and Steve Canfield, the glib American whom she meets as soon as she arrives at the Hotel Royale. We must also want this fast-talking Hollywood agent to get the girl. It, therefore, requires astute casting and subtle directing to make this happen.
As Ninotchka, Kate Marrily has the iceberg part down pat. Unfortunately, director Thomas Sabella-Mills counts more on changing her costumes than on Marrily showing us that her cold heart and mind are melting. Merrily has a lovely singing voice, but entirely loses her Russian accent every time she starts singing. Neither literally nor figuratively do we see Ninotchka let down her hair. Following in the footsteps of Douglas, Astaire, and Don Ameche who created the role on Broadway, Kevin Kraft fails to make Steve Canfield bigger than life. He is expected to hoodwink a slew of Soviet agents as well as super-spy Ninotchka. Kraft’s light tenor is pleasant enough, as is his cool personality, but neither fills the theater or overwhelms Ninotchka. How can we believe he would have such an effect on the ultimate Soviet iceberg?
Ninotchka is preceded to Paris by a trio of bumbling agents, Bibinski, Ivanov and Brankov. Played by Carl Danielsen, Jody Cook, and Jason Simon respectively, this trio of vaudeville clowns steal every scene they are in and are distinct personalities. They have a wonderful time delivering such songs as “Hail Bibinski,” “Siberia,” and “The Red Blues,” and also get to sing “Why Should I Trust You?,” a clever song cut from the original production. The trio’s energy could fuel a small city.
The actual plot concerns the attempt by the Soviets to bring home their famous composer Boroff who has been detained in Paris by Hollywood agent Canfield. Canfield commissioned him to write the background music for a Hollywood extravaganza based on War and Peace to be the first serious film of aquatic star Janice Dayton. When Soviet (spy) agents Bibinski, Ivanov and Brankov are equally seduced by Paris, super-spy Ninotchka is sent to bring them all home. However, Canfield who has previously gotten to the trio, immediately starts his campaign on Ninotchka who is curious about Western ways, initially from a strictly academic point of view. When she falls in love with both Paris and Canfield, she has some serious choices to make to keep from being called home by her commissar.
Oakley Boycott has a great deal of verve as the Hollywood film star of grade B movies. However, “Janice Dayton” is a parody of a Marilyn Monroe-Jane Russell fifties type and Boycott plays her like Kay Thompson in Funny Face. This undermines both the material and her brassy songs “Stereophonic Sound,” “Satin and Silk,” and “Josephine” which need to be belted at the audience. John Alban Coughlan as the corrupt Soviet Commissar of Art Markovitch and Rony Stav as his ballerina girlfriend Vera are very amusing in their Moscow scenes.
Although this minor Porter score has some love ballads in “Paris Loves Lovers,” “All of You,” and “Without You,” as played by David Caldwell at the solo piano, they sound thin and undernourished. The ensemble numbers are much more successful and rousing, for example, the opening number “Too Bad” joyously staged by Sabella-Mills. An additional song cut from the original score, “Art,” is strangely crude for the usually elegant and witty composer-lyricist.
Silk Stockings, Porter’s last stage musical featuring his love of Paris, has its pleasures. Unfortunately, Musicals Tonight! only gets it partially right in this rare revival of the 1955 Broadway show.
Silk Stockings (through November 15)
Musicals Tonight! at the McGinn/Cazale Theatre, 2162 Broadway a 76th Street, in Manhattan
For tickets, call 1-212-579-4230 or http://www.iseats.net