Mary Antonini with the cast of Anything Goes (Shaw Festival, 2025) | Photo by David Cooper
An indelibly charming and perennial favourite, Cole Porter’s Anything Goes is very silly. Old fashioned and frivolous, certainly, but far from being de trop, the Shaw Festival production had me tapping my feet and beaming the whole way through. It is exactly what you imagine a Depression-era escapist musical comedy would be. Set aboard a luxury cruise ship with all manner of thwarted and aspiring lovers, bumbling tycoons, gangsters disguised as holy men, brassy, enterprising broads and, uh, sailors!—there is plenty of fodder for madcap, ridiculous antics and they come fast and furious.
The original book by P.G. Wodehouse, Guy Bolton, Howard Lindsay and Russell Crouse was given a sprucing up by Timothy Crouse and John Weidman for a 1980s Broadway revival. Rather than implementing a cynical, nudge-wink distance from the corny material, the adapted book gives it a contemporary momentum while retaining—indulging in!—the original vibes. It doesn’t apologize for its groan-worthy schtick, it digs its heels in until you relent.
I’m not going to bore you with the “plot,” not when there are such gloriously fabulous trappings hung from it.
With the brassy playfulness the role requires, Mary Antonini also brings a bawdy grit to her Reno Sweeney. Betraying a certain jazzy street cred, this showgirl evangelist’s sinful past feels very present. Her sultry sermonizing in “Blow, Gabriel, Blow,” eventually saturated in deep red by Mikael Kangas lighting, is a voluptuous spectacle.
Her flirtatious chemistry with bosom buddy, fledgling wall street bro Billy Crocker (Jeff Irving) is one of several endearing twosomes. “You’re the Top” is a delightfully giddy little number and I get such a kick out of the list of ridiculous compliments these two goofballs launch at each other. “You’re a turkey dinner!” being one of my favourites with “You’re broccoli” a close second.
As Erma Latour, Kristi Frank is a saucy delight. With her disarming squeak and upfront demands, all the sailors gravitate toward her alluring charms. In “Buddie, Beware,” she lets them all know, while in stylish swimwear, what a high maintenance and expensive dame she is. As they fall all over themselves to be near her, you can tell that this quartet of sailors finds her persona more instructively enticing than merely erotic. Not-so-subtly gay-coded, their talk of fair ladies at port is deliciously ironic. The whole of the sailor ensemble (Taran Kim, Graeme Kitagawa, Leslie Garcia Bowman, and Éamon Stocks) is fun and sexy. I have my favourite, of course, but I won’t tell. Go have your own favourite!—as I’m sure you will, for each is distinct.
Micheal Therriault’s gangster, Moonface Martin, is a masterfully comic performance, especially his astonishing physicality. There’s a little Willy Wonka, some Charlie Chaplin, a hint of slapstick vaudeville shenanigans. He draws your eye constantly without ever stealing focus from anyone else—a flamboyant yet entirely generous performer.
Allan Louis is another standout as Lord Evelyn Oakleigh, a wealthy and strategic match for Hope Harcourt (Celeste Catena), who hopes to secure her family’s social and financial standing with him, though she is actually in love with Billy Crocker. Louis takes this foppish, clownishly British persona and gives him a certain goofy dignity that endears us to him.
There is a naive though genuine satisfaction in how the various romances play out. People find their ideal match—materialist with materialist, sincere lover with sincere lover. This is how things go in a feel good musical comedy confection. As silly as it all is, some brief attention is drawn to the more dire circumstances of the era—not to bring you down, but to make you especially conscious of how safe you are from them here. Little references like, for instance, an offhand comment about some wall street type throwing himself off a ledge.
The story also hits on our culture’s fascination with crime and our tendency to romanticize it. As the ship’s captain, reporters and passengers are star-struck over the “public enemies” aboard ship, there is clearly some satirical intention in their scrambling for a glimpse at notoriety.
Director Kimberley Rampersad’s production is undeniably wacky and ludicrous, though she maintains an elegance and restraint that makes it all feel so purposeful and uplifting. Cory Sincennes’ set, with its backdrop of riveted steel, glowing portholes and marque light proscenium, has an appropriately nautical hyper-theatricality. A central revolving stair unit and upper deck provides levels and contrasting motion for Rampersad’s whimsical choreography. Sincennes’ gorgeous costumes add to the swoon-worthy gestalt.
There are so many cute and ravishing numbers, but the titular Act One closer “Anything Goes,” with all the tap dancing, is the most iconic and an absolute banger. It just keeps going and going as the entire cast of characters, under Reno Sweeney’s lead, celebrate the debauchery of the modern age yet the whole extravaganza is so very innocent! I wanted it to never end, and it almost convinces you it won’t! The button is so satisfying, though, you can’t help but accept the intermission and everyone’s need for a little rest.
And, I mean, there’s a whole Act left—offering even more joyous, well-crafted and endearing nonsense!
Anything Goes
May 2 to October 4, 2025
Festival Theatre
(10 Queen’s Parade, Niagara-on-the-Lake)
2 hours, 30 minutes (including one intermission)
Kristi Frank with Graeme Kitagama, Émon Stocks, Leslie Garcia Bowman and Taran Kim in Anything Goes (Shaw Festival, 2025) | Photo by David Cooper