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Serious Silliness

A triumphant revival of Cole Porter's Anything Goes

[[image - black and white photo of Patti LuPone as Reno Sweeney in Anything Goes]]
[[credit]] BRIGITTE LACOMBE [[/credit]]
[[caption]] Patti LuPone as Reno Sweeney in Lincoln Center Theater's Anything Goes at the Vivian Beaumont [[/caption]]

From the first note of the overture, audiences at Lincoln Center's revival of Anything Goes  can sense that they are in for a treat -- classic Cole Porter songs woven into a story of shipboard romance with plenty of slapstick and even some eerily topical jokes about Wall Street mixed in. It's a show for everyone who misses musical comedy the way it used to be.

"This is such a nostalgic experience for me, because it reminds me of why Americans invented the musical," says Patti LuPone, who stars as evangelist/night club singer Reno Sweeney, the role originated in 1934 by Ethel Merman. "It's exciting to see the reaction of the audience as they recognize the formula of the American musical comedy, that combination of vaudeville and realistic romance. There really is a specialness onstage--I'm looking out and seeing a lot of grinning faces."

"I love feeling the audience sit forward and savor each word of the lyrics," adds director Jerry Zaks, the guiding force behind Anything Goes and two previous Lincoln Center hits, The House of Blue Leaves and The Front Page. "If a show like this can be done seriously and with a lot of love, people respond to it."

Some might say that any show that includes "Easy to Love"; "You're the Top"; "All Through the Night"; "I Get a Kick Out of You"; "Blow, Gabriel, Blow"; and "Anything Goes" would have to be a winner. But the half-century-old book by Guy Bolton and P.G. Wodehouse, revised by Howard Lindsay and Russel Crouse, had been staged over the years in a broad, stereotypical style. "I had seen three productions," says Zaks, "and they all had a certain campiness and a limp-wristed quality that really turned me off. I liked 

8   by Kathy Henderson

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