' , Kiss Me, Kate." ( C oliseum.) I HAVE allowed forty-eight hours to
elapse since seeing this show before beginning to write my notice, and now to my embarrassment 1 find it is a real effort to remember more than a few scrappy things about it. No doubt that in itself is a criticism, but it won't fill half a column. And yet, on reflection. I realise that my memories arc scrappy because so is Kiss Me, Kate, which is a largq and lavish ado about nothing. The plot is as thin as a Passover biscuit and it splits with the same thin crackle: two sentences will sum it up. The famous actor (Bill Johnson) and the famous actress his ex-wife (Patricia Morison) are playing The Taming of the Shrew. Famous actor takes the opportunity which the play affords to spank famous actress publicly ; and famous actress indulges in loud extra- Shakespearian tantrums right up to almost the end ; indeed the reconciling kiss comes after the fall of the curtain and is progressing nicely when the curtain rises for the company to take a bow. What else ? the prospective customer may pertinently ask. Enough, I think, to justify a restrained recommendation. There is music by Cole Porter, which couldn't be bad even if it could be better ; there is dancing by a handsome group of young gentlemen and ladies ; there are three excellent songs and a number of others and here and there passages of superior dialogue witness the hand of William Shakespeare. Despite careful subsequent thought, the memories with which I ,tarted remain -my liveliest recollections of Kiss Me, Kate (Book by Sam and Bella Spewack ; the Saint Subber and Lemuel Ayers Production)—first, an enchanting but too-long song by Julie Wilson, Always True to You (In my Fashion)" ; next, a near-the-knuckle ong " Too Darn Hot " (the words of which were not sufficiently darn audible from where I sat) and finally a song for Danny Green and Sidney James, " Brush Up Your Shakespeare." And of course Miss Morison, who becomes invisible when she lets down her hair. KENNETH HOPKINS.
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