ANYTHING GOES A REVIEW

Anyone looking for an old fashioned good time should run [not walk] to the Roundabout Theatre Company's wonderfully high spirited production of "ANYTHING GOES", and if anything it re -establishes Kathleen Marshall's reputation as one of Broadway's top director/choreogaphers. In the past few years Ms. Marshall's career has had it's ups[ ThePajama Game revival] and downs[The underpowered "Grease" revival]. With this show it's all ups and this 1934 chestnut looks and sounds as fresh as a daisy. Of course it helps that it contains Cole Porters classic score [augmented with a couple of other classic Porter songs], and further help is provided by a wonderfully talented group of performers who look like they are having a wonderful time and their enthusiasim is totally infectious and the audience I saw it with was beside itself with pleasure. This show also establishes Sutton Foster an a first class Broadway star.Ms. Foster has given many fine performances in the past most notably in "Thoroughly Modern Millie" and "Shrek" Here she is totally incandesent belting out one Porter classic after another and proves that she is perfectly capable of carrying a whole show. She is a knockout. Joel Grey [returning to Broadway after too long an absence] is teriffic as a lovable gangster and seems to be truly enjoying himself. As already mentioned, the rest of the cast is at the top of their game and Kathleen Marshall's staging is lively and inventive and her choreography is a total knockout, most notably in the show-stopping first act finale. The sets by Derek McLane and the costumes by Martin Pakledinaz are colorful and handsome and the orchestrations by Michael Gibson and Bill Elliot are lively and swinging and James Lowe conducts the excellent pit band expertly. I forgot to mention the book. It's too nonsensical to mention anyway, so let us forget about it and be cheered by the fact that this revival of 'ANYTHING GOES" is capitol fun and a total delight. Go and have a blast. AT THE STEPHEN SONDHEIM THEATRE 124 WEST 43rd STREET N.Y.C.