Anything Goes

What's not to love about Derby Dinner Playhouse's sparkling take on Cole Porter's giddy romantic shipboard musical in which, indeed, Anything Goes? The dazzling music and lyrics by this native son of Peru, Indiana, are excuse enough to brush aside the silly plot and simply revel in the non-stop gorgeous and witty songs: "I Get a Kick Out of You," "You're the Top," "Easy to Love," and "It's De-Lovely," to name just a few. Some of these were not in the original 1934 production but taken from other Porter stage and film scores to add to the wildly successful 1987 Broadway production (with a revised book) that starred Patti LuPone as Reno Sweeney, the hard-charging evangelist/chanteuse first enacted by Ethel Merman. That's the version, more or less, that Derby Dinner Playhouse's exuberant cast, led by Sandra Simpson as tough-talking heart-of-gold Reno, has on display. This must be one of the best looking shows, under producer/director Bekki Jo Schneider's direction, in the theater's history. The costumes by John P. White and the sets by ABC Productions are sumptuous. The choreography by Barbara F. Cullen (who as gangster moll Erma gets to sing the sexy "Buddy, Beware" number to some highly interested sailors) is terrific, especially for Simpson's rousing "Blow, Gabriel, Blow."

While the revised book excised many of the 1934 jokes that would fall flat today, a few samples remain to elicit friendly groans. "Liquor has never touched my lips," says an irate women offered a drink. Back comes the response from Public Enemy Number Thirteen, Moonface Martin (J. R. Stuart), on ship disguised as a minister: "Do you know a shortcut?" Stuart is hilarious in a part that could have been written for him. Also very funny is Cary Wiger as the stuffy but eager to unwind Lord Evelyn Oakleigh, to whom the lovely Hope Harcourt (Jenness Klein) is engaged though she loves handsome Billy Crocker (Jim Hesselman), a Wall Street flunky for his rich boss Elisha Whitney (Clint Vaught, splendidly droll and jovial). Wiger has a sensational star turn as he breaks out in his hot-to-trot "The Gypsy in Me." Along the way Simpson and Hesselman do a show-stopping "You're the Top" (with all those choruses Porter wrote). Then Simpson and Stuart stop the show again with their ode to "Friendship." Hesselman and Klein combine for a dreamy "All Through the Night." Simpson leads the chorus in a raise-the-roof performance of the musical's title song. And Hesselman and Klein shine in their solos -- his a soulful "Easy to Love," exquisitely sung; hers a wistful "Goodbye, Little Dream, Goodbye," a seldom heard gem. As the Gershwins said in one of their classic songs, Who could ask for anything more?