‘A CHANCE FOR STAGE FOLKS TO SAY “HELLO”: ENTERTAINMENT AND THEATRICALITY IN KISS ME, KATE HANNAH MARIE ROBBINS DEPARTMENT OF MUSIC This dissertation is submitted to the University of Sheffield for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy August 2017 ABSTRACT As Cole Porter’s most commercially successful Broadway musical, Kiss Me, Kate (1948) has been widely acknowledged as one of several significant works written during ‘the Golden age’ period of American musical theatre history. Through an in-depth examination of the genesis and reception of this musical and discussion of the extant analytical perspectives on the text, this thesis argues that Kiss Me, Kate has remained popular as a result of its underlying celebration of theatricality and of entertainment. Whereas previous scholarship has suggested that Porter and his co-authors, Sam and Bella Spewack, attempted to emulate Rodgers and Hammerstein’s Oklahoma! (1943) by creating their own ‘integrated musical’, this thesis demonstrates how they commented on contemporary culture, on popular art forms, and the sanctity of Shakespeare and opera in deliberately mischievous ways. By mapping the influence of Porter and the Spewacks’ previous work and their deliberate focus on theatricality and diversion in the development of this work, it shows how Kiss Me, Kate forms part of a wider trend in Broadway musicals. As a result, this study calls for a new analytical framework that distinguishes musicals like Kiss Me, Kate from the persistent methodologies that consider works exclusively through the lens of high art aesthetics. By acknowledging Porter and the Spewacks’ reflexive celebration of and commentary on entertainment, it advocates a new position for musical theatre research that will encourage the study of other similar stage and screen texts that incorporate themes from, and react to, the popular cultural sphere to which they belong. CONTENTS Acknowledgements 1. Biography, theoretical frameworks and archival research: 1 approaches to Kiss Me, Kate 2. From Shakespeare to Spewack: evolving a text 23 3. From Page to Stage: shaping Kiss Me, Kate for performance 60 4. Audiences, directors and opera houses: refashioning Kiss Me, 95 Kate for the international stage and screen 5. Kiss Me, Kate and the integrated musical 142 6. Kiss Me, Kate as a Shakespearean musical: interpreting 177 intertextuality and metatheatre 7. ‘Why there’s a wench’: representing gender identities in Kiss Me, 205 Kate 8. ‘I won’t waste a note of my patters on socially significant matters’: 237 Kiss Me, Kate and entertainment Appendix 1: Overview of music in Backstage 257 Appendix 2: Introduction to the published script (Knopf) 258 Appendix 3: Breakdown of songs in the original Broadway 266 production and film adaptation Appendix 4: ‘Down With Sense’ (New York Times articles) 267 Bibliography 270 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS It would not have been possible to produce the contents of this thesis without the support and advice of many important individuals. Firstly, I would like to acknowledge the guiding influence of my primary supervisor Dr Dominic McHugh. Without Dominic’s initial advice during my undergraduate degree, I would not have contemplated undertaking doctoral research. Dominic has offered me unfailing support as well as insights into his own research process that have helped me to develop my scholarship. In addition to this, his warmth and generosity throughout my degree have helped me to work through some extremely challenging times. I am blessed to call Dominic a dear friend and hope that we shall continue to work (and drink tea) together for many years to come. I have received considerable support from many members of staff in the Department of Music during my years of study at the University of Sheffield. I would like to extend particular thanks to Professor Stephanie Pitts, Dr George Nicholson and Dr David Patmore for their continued interest in my development. In addition to these individuals, I would like to acknowledge the financial support of the Department’s Julian Payne Award and Gladys Hall Continuation Scholarship schemes as well as the Department Research Fund, which have helped me with tuition and allowed me to undertake the necessary research trips to the United States. Here, I would also like to thank the University’s Alumni Foundation and the Diocese of London for their specific financial contributions, which have supported my personal maintenance during my university studies. During both my trips to the United States, I experienced warmth and kindness from the numerous archivists and library staff that I worked with. I am particularly grateful to Mark Eden Horowitz at the Library of Congress, Richard Boursy at Yale University and Jennifer Lee at Columbia University. I would also like to acknowledge the assistance of Roberta Staats at The Cole Porter Trust, who has patiently answered my different questions about Porter’s papers, as well as Professor James Hepokoksi, Robert Kimball and David Charles Abell, who each offered me early encouragement as began my research. Finally, I am indebted to my family, especially to my parents, Rachel and Simon, and grandparents, Ian and Anne, who made it possible for me to enjoy trips to the i theatre throughout my childhood. Similarly, I would not have been able to complete my work without the incredible support of my friends Danielle Birkett, Kate Carrington, Jessica Crich, Douglas Dunn, Katie Ewing, Danielle Fairbrass, Naz Gayle, Kirsty Hemsworth and Jamie Morgan. I would particularly like to thank Danielle Birkett and Kirsty Hemsworth for sharing their experiences with me and enriching my PhD studies with lively discussion and laughter. I hope that this thesis conveys the enthusiasm I have continually felt for Kiss Me, Kate and for musical theatre research that I have inflicted on all those close to me during the last four years. I dedicate this thesis to my grandfather Peter Robbins for whom the discussion of music brought ceaseless exhilaration and who made me wish to do my very best, always. ii CHAPTER ONE: BIOGRAPHY, THEORETICAL FRAMEWORKS AND ARCHIVAL RESEARCH: APPROACHES TO KISS ME, KATE Kiss Me, Kate presents a metatheatrical snapshot of the opening night performance of a musical version of William Shakespeare’s The Taming of the Shrew. With a book by Sam and Bella Spewack and music by Cole Porter, Kiss Me, Kate ran for 1070 performances and became the fourth-longest running musical of the 1940s.1 The show opened on 30 December, 1949 at the New Century Theatre, with a reported $350,000 in advanced ticket sales, and went on to garner numerous accolades including the inaugural Tony Award for Best Musical (1949).2 Following its opening success on Broadway, Kiss Me, Kate has been performed internationally, including productions in the UK (1951), Sweden (1952), Turkey (1963) and Japan (1965). In 1957, it became the first American musical to be performed in communist Europe and by 1968, it had been translated into over twenty languages including German, Hebrew and Yugoslavian.3 This international success is complemented by frequent American revivals, the release of MGM’s film adaptation Kiss Me Kate (1953) and several television adaptations in America, Germany and UK. In 1999, British theatre director Michael Blakemore mounted a revised version of the show at the Martin Beck Theatre in New York that became the most nominated musical revival in Tony Award history.4 More recently, Kiss Me, Kate has been monumentalised in a critical edition by David Charles Abell and Seann Alderking.5 1 Kiss Me, Kate was the fourth most successful show of the 1940s, beaten only by Rodgers and Hammerstein’s Oklahoma! (1943), which ran for 2212 performances, South Pacific (1949), which ran for 1925 performances, and Irving Berlin, Herbert and Dorothy Fields’s Annie Get Your Gun (1946), which ran for 1147 performances. Geoffrey Block, Enchanted Evenings: The Broadway Musical from Show Boat to Sondheim and Lloyd Webber (Oxford University Press, New York: 2009), W31-32. 2 ‘Arriving here by way of Philadelphia, where the professional appraisers ecstatically likened it to such felicitous musicals as “Oklahoma!” and “Annie Get Your Gun,” “Kiss Me, Kate” already is said to have amassed $350,000 in advance sales.’ Louis Calta, ‘Premiere Tonight of ‘Kiss Me, Kate’, New York Times, December 30, 1948 [YISG Scrapbook]. 3 Kiss Me, Kate (titled Daj buzi Kasiu) opened at the Teatr Komedia in Warsaw on September 14, 1957. It then transferred Łódź in 1958. It has been revived several times, most recently in 2012. 4 In 2000, Blakemore became the first person to win the Tony Award for Director of a Musical (for Kiss Me, Kate) and Director of a Play (for the original Broadway production of Michael Frayn’s Copenhagen (1998)) in the same year. The 1999 production of Kiss Me, Kate received 12 Tony nominations. ‘Quick Facts and Tony Trivia’, Tony Awards, accessed August 24, 2016. http://www.tonyawards.com/en_US/history/facts/. 5 Cole Porter, Kiss Me, Kate: A Musical Play. eds. David C. Abell & Seann Alderking (Van Nuys, California: Alfred Publishing Company, 2014). 1 Kiss Me, Kate came as a result of a second collaboration between the Spewacks and Porter. The show combines an onstage redaction of Shakespeare’s The Taming of Shrew, embellished by original songs by Porter, with the offstage war between leading actor Fred Graham and his ex-wife and co-star Lilli Vanessi. This narrative concept was based upon the real-life observations of Arnold Saint Subber who worked on a production of The Taming of the Shrew (1935), starring celebrated actors (and married couple) Alfred Lunt and Lynn Fontanne. Using this for inspiration, Bella Spewack created a fictional comedy in which Fred attempts to manipulate Lilli into remaining in his production (and with him) after she discovers his affair with secondary lead actress Lois.