Cole Porter's "Panama Hattie" - New York City Article

Cole Porter’s “Panama Hattie”
York Theatre Company (Musicals in Mufti)
619 Lexington Ave, at E. 54th Street
Lower Level 2
Through November 3

It’s a hoary old cliche that actors should never work with children or animals, and Kylie Kuioka has got to be the most appealing nine-year-old scene-stealer I have ever encountered. But the kid isn’t born who can steal a scene from the formidable Klea Blackhurst, especially when she’s channeling the great Ethel Merman. In 1940, Panama Hattie was the fourth of five Broadway blockbusters from the Merman-Cole Porter team, and even though it was filmed by MGM two years later (with both Merman and most of Porter’s songs replaced), today it’s probably the least known of the five, and one of the few for which there’s never been a satisfactory cast album or, not until now, an Encores! or Mufti-style concert production. Between Miss Blackhurst, leading man Stephen Bogardus, British comic Simon Jones (passing through as if gathering material for The Hitchhiker’s Guide to Pre-War Central America), and little Miss Kuioka, this is the most star-driven of recent Mufti productions and also the most enjoyable. The score contains four Porter classics recorded at the time by Merman for Decca (“My Mother Would Love You,” “I've Still Got My Health,” “Let's Be Buddies,” and “Make It Another Old-Fashioned, Please”) as well as a few worthy tunes that most of us have only encountered in Bob Kimball’s Complete Lyrics compendium. “I’m Throwing a Ball Tonight” offers some of Porter’s most spectacular rhyming fireworks as a perfect Act One closer, whereas “God Bless the Women” (performed by three dese-and-dose sailors, including Jay Aubrey Jones channeling Rags Ragland who himself seems like a stand in for Bert Lahr) is a comedy waltz in the general trajectory of “Hey Babe, Hey” and “Brush Up Your Shakespeare.” Worth seeing, for the cast, and, obviously, the score, and not just for us hardcore musical comedy nerds.

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