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When the musical comedy Anything Goes first played in Chicago in 1934 the nation and the city were caught in the country’s worst economic situation – The Great  Depression. The Great Depression was particularly severe in Chicago because of the city’s reliance on manufacturing, the hardest hit sector nationally. Only 50 percent of the Chicagoans who had worked in the manufacturing sector in 1927 were still working there in 1934. By February 1933, public school teachers were owed eight and a half months’ back pay…

Neither private charities nor the city was equipped for such devastating hard times. Many unemployed and frustrated workers took matters into their own hands. The Great Depression saw some of the most violent strikes and protest movements in the city’s history…  Across the city, angry housewives protested retailers’ misleading advertising and refusal to lower prices…

“The Great Depression transformed the daily lives, economic expectations, and political loyalties of most Chicagoans. The debates and unrest it engendered continued to frame political and social movements” into the present day.[i]

When Anything Goes opened on December 22,1935, in Chicago’s Grand Opera House at 119 North Clark Street the patrons in the 1750 seats had little joy in their everyday lives. The critics alluded to this in their reviews. The Tribune’s Charles Collins noted that “ diversions like Anything Goes have been rare events on the Chicago stage during the past year or two…Last night’s premiere was, therefore, a joyous occasion, attended by the old guard and its modern reinforcements, all chortling with glee. It was a festive opening for a show that should contribute strongly to a revival of the playgoing habit in this region”[ii]

Anything Goes was a musical with music and lyrics by Cole Porter. Producer Vernon Freedley had the idea for the musical. The original book was a collaborative effort by Guy Bolton and P. G. Wodehouse, revised considerably by the team of Howard Lindsay and Russel Crouse. The production at the Grand Opera House was a touring version of the production which had debuted was at New York’s Alvin Theatre on November 21, 1934. The cast was the same as in New York with the exception of Benay Venuta replacing Ethel Merman as Reno Sweeney. It ran for 420 performances, becoming the fourth longest-running musical of the 1930s, despite the impact of the Great Depression on Broadway patrons’ disposable income. The opening production was directed by Howard Lindsay with choreography by Robert Alton and sets by Donald Oenslager.

Since its 1934 debut at the Alvin Theatre on Broadway, the musical has been revived several times. Consequently the Porchlight libretto resembles very little  the one performed in Chicago ninety years earlier. Four different librettos have been called Anything Goes. The score has been altered, as well, with some songs cut and others reassigned to different scenes and characters, and augmented with various Porter songs from other shows.

The 1988 national tour was quite good, featuring Leslie Uggams as Reno Sweeney, Rex Smith as Billy Crocker and Rip Taylor as Moonface Martin, and my old UVa pal Paul Ames as Lord Evelyn Oakleigh. The 2018 Arena Stage production of Anything Goes was one of the finest musical theater productions we ever saw, featuring the Billy Crocker of Corbin Bleu and the Reno Sweeney of Soara-Joye Ross.

So now comes the new Porchlight Music Theatre’s 2024 Anything Goes at Chicago’s Ruth Page Theater.

Perusing the program while  awaiting the overture I noticed songs new to me: such as “There’s No Cure Like Travel”, and ”Bon Voyage”, as well as missing songs: including “Let’s Step Out” and ‘Let’ s Misbehave’, and “Take Me Back to Manhattan.”

What was going on here?

Then the portrait of Cole Porter lit up, and we heard his voice singing “Anything Goes” from long ago. As the song progressed it blended and faded into the seven piece orchestra’s playing of the title song.

Then the action started and the acting style was not the usual modern realism. The dialogue was particularly snappy and crisp, and  one character’s sentence telescoped over another’s character’s sentence, finishing action of the previous scene. The music was fantastic, under the direction of Nick Sula. In 1989 EMI Records released  a 1934 Anything Goes, directed by John McGlinn, with the original orchestrations by Hans Splatek. I wouldn’t be surprised if that recording inspired some of the work on this production.

The production was recreating, as much as possible, the production of 1934!

Dances resembled those of the 1930s  Busby Berkely and Fred Astaire films. The orchestrations seemed of the period as well. The gags seemed of the same ilk in the Marx Brothers’ shipboard film “Monkey Business.”

This was my great surprise: The Porchlight Music Theatre was attempting to resurrect the past right before our eyes! This was an audience’s once in a lifetime opportunity.

It was very exciting.

Director Michael Weber is a courageous magician to believe he could assemble a production staff and cast to pull it off. And he did. Mr. Weber must be one of the most knowledgeable, imaginative, and daring people working in Chicago’s theatre. In my opinion, he is a rare treasure

The shipboard setting was a Jeffrey D. Kmiec, (another UVa fellow alum), special: so many different scenes, so many characters, and so little space in the 218 seat 98 year old Ruth Page Theatre, a former funeral parlor, Moose lodge, and bowling alley. The resultant set is a theatrical Chinese puzzle in action as subsets fly in and out as characters spin through the three deck level revolving doors, and scurry up and down the ship’s ladders leading to the bridge of the ship. Amazing traffic direction through settings and stage blocking.

Tammy Mader creates imaginative period dance numbers amid all this, adding an occasional footnote move in homage ala Bob Fosse to more modern choreographers. Tap and ballroom and RKO seem to dominate the styles of dance. And ALL of the performers who dance do so with great aplomb, making the difficult look easy. If you wondered why so many old musicals featured tap dance, this production will answer your question. A unison tap line is perhaps one of the most thrilling audio and visual experiences in the theatre. Bravo to Ms. Mader and all who followed her lead so brilliantly.

The costumes seem to be all of the period, though one or two  others might have slipped in through the door of necessity. Each costume communicates the character’s identity perfectly. And that is the primary function of a stage costume. Bravo to costume designer Rachel Boylan.

All of this flurry of movement is lit with panache and drama by designer Max Maxin IV

The cast was magnificent from top to bottom. The hub of the production, the engine which keeps things going, is the complete theater artist Meghan Murphy and her portrayal of Reno Sweeney. Looking like Raquel Welch, with an Ethel Merman over-sized personality, she appears to be able to sing and dance and act in any tone or style thrown her way. Her simple presence in the company seems to encourage everyone to reach inside  themselves for more to give to the show. The audience thundered its approveal at her curtain call.

The young love interest is played convincingly and with important comic nuance by Luke Nowakowski as Billy and Emma Ogea as Hope. The oldster love interest is in the equally capable hands of Jackson Evans as Lord Evelyn and Genevieve Venjohnson as Mrs. Harcourt. Mr. Evans performs a manic dance which breaks the audience into a prolonged fit of hysteria.

The weight of the musical’s comedy is entrusted to the Moonface Martin of Steve McDonagh. Without resorting to tired shtick, the wise actor gives the character a seriousness and allows the situation and lines to work the comic effects. He is a cross between Victor Moore and Tim Conway. His partner is crime and love is Tafadzwa Diener as Erma, who stops the show with her second act “Buddy, Beware”

If this summary sounds like a rave, that is good, because it is a rave. When the weather hits minus temperatures we should embrace shows like this one, a modern homage to our musical past, in which so many talented artists invested so  much time and talent to warm our hearts and souls.

[i] http://www.encyclopedia.chicagohistory.org/pages/542.html

[ii] Charles Collins,  Anything Goes Praised as A-1 Musical Comedy, Chicago Tribune, December 23, 1935