THEATER REVIEW: 'Too Darn Hot'

There are brilliant composers and lyricists — Cole Porter was both. And what brilliance he had; he was hardly a one-note wonder. His songs ran the gamut from streetwise to sophisticated to bawdy to romantic to cynical to tear-jerking to laugh-out-loud funny. (And they occasionally offered the full spectrum of emotion in a single song.) Porter could touch your heart and dazzle your mind with verbal pyrotechnics. He was that good.

Some songs age well; some age badly. Porter’s songs have not aged at all, as “Too Darn Hot” proves. It’s the current revue at Florida Studio Theatre — a reprise of a 2004 review, created by Richard Hopkins, Rebecca Hopkins and Jim Prosser. I enjoyed it the first time. The second time around, the show is as fresh as ever.

The cast is a well-oiled music machine. Prosser does his light-fingered magic on the piano. Ruthie Stephens, Stephen Hope, Gayle Samuels and Derrick Cobey are the singer/actors.

I say “singer/actors” because this is more than a jukebox revue. The show’s creators put a dramatic frame around Porter’s tunes. (There are snippets of biography.) This musical box is all about Porter’s creative obsessions.

Porter was a worldly wise (and occasionally wicked) sophisticate. Hope embodies this with his snarky, urbane comic persona. He gets in a funny line in “Let’s Do It (Let’s Fall in Love)” — which he describes as a “musical Kama Sutra on Noah’s ark.” No city exemplifies Porter's brand of tough, knowing urbanity better than New York City. Hope nails that attitude in “I Happen to Love New York.”

Porter also loved Paris — and famously wrote a song to that effect. But that song was not the only one. FST’s musical box is packed with five lyrical love letters to Paris. But Porter was no tourist. He saw the City of Light’s dark side, too. Stephens takes us there in her heartrending rendition of “Love for Sale” — played here as a Parisian streetwalker’s knowing lament.

Porter was an equal fan of word play and musical high wire acts. Cobey stands out here, particularly in “I’m Throwing a Ball Tonight.” The tune is a switchback roller coaster full of key changes and tough-to-hit half notes. Cobey hits them all with a combination of power and finesse.

Porter did not just create songs: He created characters. Every Porter song is either in his voice or the voice of a fully realized human being. The mercurial Samuels is a fine singer in her own right and also a fine actor. She melts into her characters with subtle shifts, not just of voice, but body language and attitude. Brilliant.

To be fair, granted the revue’s structure, teasing the brilliant performances apart is a tad artificial. Director Richard Hopkins and Musical Director Jeffrey Campos create a constantly shifting musical kaleidoscope. Quartet becomes duo becomes solo act, as the singer/actors constantly change places. The effect is like being invited to the party of the century — and that’s no accident.

Porter was famous (or infamous) for his scandalous parties with the upper crust. (Unlike Groucho Marx, he was happy to join any club that invited him.) The lyricist/composer bit the wealthy hands that fed him, but did not stop dining and feeding on tidbits of gossip and phrase he worked into his songs. Porter’s love/hate relationship with the rich filtered into his songs. He dithered between social climbing and sarcasm, sophistication and coarse jokes. His multilayered attitude toward the wealthy does not easily fit in today’s one-note politics, which, perhaps, is why his work is still so entertaining.

Thanks to Porter’s songs, the party goes on.

IF YOU GO
“Too Darn Hot” runs through June 7 at Florida Studio Theatre’s Court Cabaret, 1247 First St., Sarasota. Call 366-9000 or visit floridastudiotheatre.org for more information