Mercury Steve Rhyne Jupiter John-Elliott Kirk Diana/Anthea Ann Magdalen Apollo Matt Riutta Mars David Miailovich Bacchus/Harry/Strephon Mike Early Minerva/Leda Lihn Kauffman Night/Marika Kristin Price Venus Illana Zauderer Helen Vance Stephanie Rhoads Isadora St John Lisa Peers Art O’Malley Kurt Kroesche Juno Darlene Popovic Chloe Caroline Altman Musical director Dave Dobrusky Director Greg MacKellan Choreographer Jayne Zaban 42nd Street Moon Music and lyrics by Cole Porter, original book by Dwight Taylor and Reginald Lawrence, new book by Greg MacKellan, incorporating additional material by Howard Ashman Out of this world was Porter’s follow-up to Kiss me Kate, and has a number of comparable songs and character types. It didn’t get quite as good a cast in its short-lived first run, and has had only intermittent fringe revivals since. But it’s in the same league musically and perhaps more rewarding emotionally, a precursor of A little night music, though with a touch of A funny thing happened on the way to the forum. Based on Plautus’ Amphitryo, and set in a Greece not a million miles from the Athens of A midsummer night’s dream, it involves Jupiter (in the Howard Keel slot) pursuing a mortal, Helen Vance, while tying to avoid detection by Juno. There are some modern nymphs, including Chloe from Chicago in the Ann Miller slot, and a very artistic Apollo. But where Kiss me Kate, perhaps taking its cue from the Shrew, is about the cruelty that ties the bonds of marriage, Out of this world is about the possibility of letting go and, at least temporarily, coming to terms with an old relationship. Its most familiar song, probably, is From this moment on, which looks into the future of a marriage with the same sort of intense chaos as that with which So in love churns over the past and present. But its theme song, Use your imagination, is both an airier major-key look at the same future and an invitation to polymorphous perversity, which pervades the plot and provides a way out, or rather a way back in, for Jupiter and Juno’s marriage. There is also a song, No lover for me, in which Helen expresses her complete satisfaction with her husband and her marriage, unlike anything in Kiss me Kate. She has just unknowingly spent the night with Jupiter disguised as her husband, but the divine interference doesn’t in fact damage the happiness of her marriage. Another number, a trio What do you think about men?, is perhaps similarly a partial recantation of I hate men -- they have their failings, but you can’t live without them when the right moment comes. The midsummer night’s timeout is a pleasant, strange interlude for the happy couple and an untangling of knots for the miserable, for the world-weary but still sharp Juno even more than for the rampant Jupiter. The 42nd Street Moon production uses a completely new book that keeps the shape of the very first (pre-production) book and the idea introduced in an unproduced 1979 rewrite by Harold Ashman of Helen as a film star and a Hollywood background. There are anachronistic cracks about Rock Hudson and (probably) Myconos. Apollo is far more out than the censored dresser in Kiss me Kate, and doubles as his mother‘s gay friend. There is a Mr-Sloane set-up, when Apollo and Venus distract Helen’s gorgeous husband, which Porter wouldn’t have dared even under the cover of some incredible rhyme. A typical post-war gangster and his subplot is replaced by a Hedda Hopper-like gossip columnist, who shares Juno’s sense of decay and also her bed (because Juno thinks she’s Jupiter in disguise, of course), a twist which Porter also wouldn’t have dared, for several reasons. The end result is amusingly reminiscent of Cavalli’s Callisto, which might be the only work in the standard music-theatre repertoire that is downright filthier. The production was accompanied by a piano (four-handed for the overture), and was staged with some neat choreography on a very small platform, but no scenery or props. The notorious eroticism of the dance of night was replaced by Kristin Price’s athletic and amiable battiness. The costumes were discount-store chiffon for the goddesses, white linen, chiffon scarves and laurel wreathes for the gods -- Jupiter as top god had a lame cravat --, dirndls for the Greek nymphs, Grace Kelly gear for Helen and the gender-appropriate equivalent for her husband, Art. The cast seemed to be having a great time, and the performances were all exceptionally good. Perhaps 42nd Street Moon’s practice of doing a two-week run in a small house lets the performers get into things a bit more than in the London Lost Musicals, where performances are on a sequence of Sundays. Stephanie Rhoads was a serene, gently comic, Helen, not great vocally, but expressive in her three wonderful songs. She also looked great in the fifties fashions. Kurt Kroesche as Art O’Malley, her husband, looked like a real dumb blond until he turned up very funnily as Jupiter-as-Art. He also found the emotional depth in You don‘t remind me. This is a neglected winner of a song -- a second-person retread of My mistress’ eyes are nothing like the sun -- that is far too mature for Jupiter and comes out of the blue from Art but which somehow fits in with the overall sense of needing to take time out to look at things as they really are. John-Elliott Kirk was perhaps not as vocally robust as Howard Keel, but amusingly goat-like and sure of himself. Illana Zauderer was a very naughty Venus. Caroline Altman a sweet but tough Chloe, getting mileage out of her rather low-grade song Where, oh where, about the lack of attractive men who are also millionaires, and well on top of the jaw-breaking patter of Cherry pies ought to be you. Steve Rhyne was an amiable, laddish Mercury, a comic enabler as in the original play, well on top of the patter in Cherry pies and They couldn‘t compare to you. Primae inter pares, though, were Lisa Peers as Isadora St John, the dykey gossip columnist, and Darlene Popovic as Juno (travelling as June O’Hara). Their duet version of I sleep easier now, an alleged celebration of the calm that comes with getting older, was almost heartbreaking in its drunken fear of the big sleep. Popovic also gave plenty of theatrical welly to her two big songs, I got beauty and Nobody’s chasing me. A bit younger than Charlotte Greenwood was on the original cast album, she sounded far more distraught, but also far more alive.