‘High Society’ Brings Golden Age Glamor Back to London in a Dazzling Revival

Cole Porter fans could be forgiven for thinking the last of the dozen Broadway shows with “music and lyrics by Cole Porter” was “Silk Stockings,” which closed in April 1956 eight years before he died in 1964. Actually, to the list of his original musicals let’s add one other, “High Society,” a tale of intertwined romances among the socially elite, sometimes interrelated, too rich to have to strive in anything but romance.The curtain that formed the background for many of the scenes in the production staged at London’s historic Barbican Theatre was inscribed, “Newport,” in huge letters, but the show evolved from the movie musical, “The Philadelphia Story,” starring Grace Kelly and Frank Sinatra.” The name “Newport” evokes an era of long-established old wealth involved in games of love and lying, all leading a roaring rendition of “Let’s Do It” for the finale.If “Let’s Do it” sounds both familiar and a little out of place in a show purporting to descend from “The Philadelphia Story,” that’s because the song was originally for the 1928 Cole Porter show, “Paris,” starring a French star. The lyrics, “Birds do it, Bees Do it,” etc. are as familiar as those of several other songs lifted from earlier Porter shows. “I Love Paris” from the long-running “Can-Can,” which charmed Broadway audiences from 1953 to 1955, works its way into the complicated plot when sung by mother and daughter introducing themselves to a fake photo-journalist.If it all seems a little contrived, the show works as a pastiche of Cole Porter favorites, a collection of his songs from high points in his career, bound together by a flimsy, foolish plot that seemed just fine for the audience that filled every seat in the Barbican through its limited run. Perhaps partly because the show is a refreshing antidote to the political and royal turmoil presently afflicting London, tickets were almost impossible to get. My son and I picked up two returns in the center of the front row of what the English call the “dress circle,” actually the first level of the balcony, with a sweeping view of the stage.British audiences seem to love Cole Porter with if anything more intensity than the Americans. It was the third year in a row for Cole Porter at the Barbican. We had seen rousing renditions of “Anything Goes” and “Kiss Me Kate,” last year and the year before. To British audiences, Porter seems of the same genre as their own Noel Coward, the master of sophisticated musical wit, all the more remarkable because he sang his own songs and also wrote plays.The familiarity of the songs in “High Society” sometimes seems a little startling. Who would know that “You Do Something to Me,” sung by the leading man to the leading lady, already engaged to a boring businessman, was the opening number in the 1929 Porter show, “Fifty Million Frenchman”? Interestingly, that old favorite was not included in the less-than-successful Broadway version. Another song that never made it to “High Society” on Broadway but drops into the Barbican production: “Just One of Those Things.” How that ballad of love gone slightly wrong, from the 1935 show “Jubilee,” did not qualify for the Broadway “High Society” is a mystery. Was it too familiar, old hat? Not to the audience at the Barbican, which burst into cheers before one of the lovelorn rivals for the hand of the leading lady had barely finished the final mournful notes.Much of the credit for bringing Porter’s songs up to date has to go to lyricist Susan Birkenhead. It may seem a little presumptuous for anyone to embroider on or update a Porter song, but she managed just that for the opening “High Society” number, a full-blast dance marathon for the entire cast. And she did the same for the gentle “Once Upon a Time,” the impish “Let’s Misbehave” and the comedic, “Well Did You Evah,” yes, the song that Bing Crosby and Frank Sinatra made into a favorite in “The Philadelphia Story” movie.At times, though, audiences may wonder if they’re just watching a revue featuring Porter’s best remembered songs. You get that feeling in the second act when the silver-haired businessman and the mother of the leading lady both agree, “You’d Be So Nice to Come to,” from the film, “Something to Shout About.” The song did win an Academy Award nomination in 1943 for best song. Not to worry. “True Love,” sung by Bing Crosby and Grace Kelly in “The Philadelphia Story,” did win the academy in 1957 and made it into the show.But what about all those other familiar Cole Porter songs? No, you don’t get “I Get a Kick Out of You” or “Begin the Beguin” in “High Society.” Playwright Arthur Kopit has done a masterful job of weaving together as much nonsense as will fit into a two-and-one-half-hour musical. This version, judging from the songs deemed worthy of the crazy plot, may be the best versions so far. Certainly the audience in London would give it a place in the canon of Cole Porter musicals.

‘High Society’ Brings Golden Age Glamor Back to London in a Dazzling Revival

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