‘ANYTHING GOES’ BUOYED BY SUPERB COLE PORTER SCORE
Anything definitely goes aboard the ocean liner SS American.
A mobster pretends to be a priest. A stockbroker pretends to be a mobster. An evangelist pretends to be a nightclub singer. Hold on, she is an evangelist — and a nightclub singer. Along with mistaken identities and manic stage entrances and exits, there's no lack of wackiness in “Anything Goes,” a musical conceived nearly a century ago when people more commonly crossed the Atlantic on ocean liners.
San Diego Musical Theatre's season opener, a production of the 2011 version of “Anything Goes” written by John Weidman and Timothy Crouse, is true to all the high jinks on the high seas written into this show from its origins.
It's also faithful to the foundation of any staging of “Anything Goes,” from the 2021 London revival to a pick-your-high-school production: the music and lyrics of the great Cole Porter.
Without its Porter classics like the show-opening “I Get a Kick Out of You,” “You're the Top” or the jaunty title tune, “Anything Goes” would be just a fairly
entertaining slapstick tale about boy (Billy Crocker, played at SDMT by Anthony Michael Vacio) seeking girl (Hope Harcourt, portrayed by Christianne Holly Santiago). Porter's matchless way with a melody and clever lyrics give “Anything Goes” a degree of sophistication it might otherwise not possess.
So does Allison Spratt Pearce, in the signature role of Reno Sweeney, that evangelist/nightclub performer whose singing, dancing and scheming are the focal points of “Anything Goes.”
Billy wooing Hope or the real mobsters hiding out onboard are secondary.
From the instant Spratt Pearce kicks things off with “I Get a Kick Out of You,” she has this show in her hands. Her first-act-closing “Anything Goes” with the full cast behind her and the second-act “Blow, Gabriel, Blow,” complete with angels, are super-charged and marvelously choreographed by Xavier J. Bush.
Director Omri Schein knows more than a few things about comic timing, both as an experienced
actor and director. With an ensemble as large as this one (a cast of over 20) and more characters than any one musical comedy really needs, “Anything Goes” calls for clockwork precision while maintaining a sense of unpredictable zaniness. It happens at SDMT, even if it all goes on too long.
Vacio and Santiago's lovers are sweet and sweet voiced. There's much more fun from not only Spratt Pearce but from Zane Davis as hapless Lord Evelyn Oakleigh, Hope Harcourt's fiancé. The moment when
Lord Evelyn taps into his undiscovered, unbridled passion for Reno Sweeney in “The Gypsy in Me” is right up there with Gomez and Morticia Addams tangoing at their sexiest.
Costume designers Janet Pitcher and Chong Mi Land ensure everyone's clad in their 1930s shipboard finest, even when in disguise.
Its intentionally illogical story may be empty calories, but the “Anything Goes” musical score — a helping of “De-Lovely” or “All Through the Night” here, an “Easy to Love” or “Friendship” there — is wholly fulfilling. That Cole Porter really knew his stuff.