I saw Anything Goes a few weeks ago. I forgot to tell you. Don't be mad.
I'd never seen this play before, but I figured the music of Cole Porter (swoon) as delivered by Sutton Foster (adore), the legendary Joel Grey (admire), and the sassy Jessica Walter (love) would be a slam dunk.
You know what, though? It was fun, and it was glittering, but it wasn't my favorite.
I didn't love the plot. I get that it was essentially thrown together all those years ago - a last-minute re-write - an "Anything Goes!" attitude. And it's a Broadway musical, after all, so some belief must be suspended, some amount of deus ex machina must be expected, when tying up plot lines into a neat, shiny, happy finale.
But the characters all felt flat, their motivations left to anyone's guess. I couldn't get invested in what happened to them. Would that scrappy young lad get the pretty girl in the end? Don't care. Would that sassy show girl find true love? Don't care. Would the doddering mobster get away with murder? Don't care.
So Anything Goes lost me there, on the care factor. Though it did have some pretty fun costumes and dance sequences. If flapper costumes and flap-ball-changes can cover a multitude of plot sins in your book, then go see it! If not, then maybe just get the soundtrack. Cole Porter never disappoints.
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