Kiss Me Kate

Although I am far from being a theater buff, I have been fortunate enough to attend a fairly broad array of live performances. I've seen The Lion King on Broadway which I found incredibly amusing, every year my family attends A Christmas Carrol performed in Pittsburgh as a holiday tradition and I also took a tech theater workshop class for two semesters in high school in which I worked several school performances. In this age of overwhelming technology I believe many people, myself included, do not admire staged shows as much as they deserve. Almost every show I attend I will find myself shocked with how entertained I became. This certainly held true to the Kiss Me Kate show on Saturday. The catchy songs and upbeat humor of the play were absolutely a nice surprise. Kiss Me Kate was very similar to most musicals I have seen, I always am absolutely amazed by the talents of actors in these types of shows. As somebody with limited musical ability I feel that whenever those with such skills are on display i can only help but appreciate it. I think that my favorite musical may have to be West Side Story. It is such a classic and although I have never seen it performed live I think that the story and the great songs are enough to call it one of the best ever. Kiss Me Kate is certainly in a bit different subgenre within musical than West Side Story but obviously the integration of performing songs and acting are a common aspect the shows share. I have never neither read or even heard of Shakespeare's Taming of the Shrew so I cannot speak to the accuracy of the show, however i very much enjoyed how the play was integrated into the other. I think that the way the writers of Kiss Me Kate were able to follow the plot of Shrew and then to add songs that so perfectly fit into the story was magnificent. Also I felt the switching back and forth between the play within the play and what was actually happening in "real life" in no way took away from the experience, it certainly enhanced it. I really enjoyed the part of the show in which Lilli took Mr. Graham's note behind stage and read it, while at the same time the Shrew played on. The use of the transparent curtain was a very nice addition to the performance. If i could pick one aspect of the show that i enjoyed the most it would easily have to be the humor. I feel as if there is nothing more dull than a live performance that fails to keep the audience interested. For instance, my high school's rendering of The Crucible was easily one of the most excruciatingly painful things I've been forced to sit through.Kiss Me Kate was full of witty one liners and character portrayals like the mob men who kept the audience laughing. All in all I am glad to say that i expected to be a boring, mandated, and Saturday-consuming escapade ended up being a fairly entertaining and culturing experience.