Hot N' Cole

The best moments of Hot N’ Cole: A Cole Porter Celebration at the Kavinoky Theatre are those when the talented members of the cast are allowed to exert individual personalities and to express individual interpretations of Cole Porter’s songs.

The cast of the Kavinoky's Hot N' Cole

Act One gives Marc Sacco a chance to give his own signature to “Miss Otis Regrets,” and for Tom Owen to relate that Julie Wilson standard, “Tale of the Oyster.” But it’s not until Act Two, sometime around when Kathy Weese is allowed to unleash the Kathy Weese magic with “My Heart Belongs to Daddy,” signaling the beginning of playfully complicated relationships among the players, that Hot N’ Cole becomes hot at all. Until then, it’s really just slogging along. Act One, in fact, is a bit of a blur.

The best musical revues are matched to the talents of the performers who are in them. Think Ain’t Misbehavin’. Think Smokey Joe’s Café. On that score, director Michael Walline has enjoyed considerable success in the past—even when the conceit of the show has been something as flimsy and silly as Peggy Lee and Lucille Ball both hailing from places called “Jamestown.” Here, however, he begins by pushing too hard, over-choreographing and confining some of Buffalo’s best musical performers in an unflattering box. (If you think “Anything Goes” is a surefire tune, you’re mistaken.) Happily, that’s not all there is to Hot N’ Cole, and Walline does find ways to highlight his talented cast, albeit in fits and starts.

Placed on a smart and sleek set by David King, featuring two pianos (courtesy of Illos on Main Street, we are reminded with good-humored repetition) played by Jason Bravo and music director Michael Hake, the show does manage to soar to some heights. Well it should, given the wealth of material provided by Cole Porter who, with Noel Coward and Rodgers and Hart, provided the lion’s share of cynical urbane song standards from the early 20th century.

Having disconnected these numbers from the shows and films that introduced them, Hot N’ Cole endeavors to maneuver them into new relationships and situations, aided by the invention of Michael Walline.

Katy Miner is new to the Buffalo theater scene and a welcome addition. Her unadorned interpretations of such Cole Porter songs as “I’m Back in Circulation” and “Get out of Town” are fresh, sharp, and droll. She plays impressively well with the ensemble and even stands out in some of the group numbers—and not annoyingly either.

Kelly Meg Brennan has a lovely, conservatory-trained voice that is difficult to job into a revue of show tunes. Not a belter and certainly not an ingénue, in Hot N’ Cole she finds her way by exerting an edgy, arguably butch persona that actually begins to grow on us. When she tears into Marc Sacco with her hard-driving rendition of “Easy to Love,” it is. When she pulls a hammer from her handbag, I almost fell out of my seat—you’ll just have to see for yourself.

Matthew Mooney pushes his juvenile lead personality to the limit and does nicely with such familiar tunes as “You Do Something to Me” and “It’s De-Lovely,” which he performs with Miss Weese.

With so many tunes tossed into the mix, several get short shrift. As the pace accelerates, one might miss the irreverent zip of the skipped lyrics from “Most Gentleman Don’t Like Love,” and I did experience an intermittent sense of frustration with the material, but all in all a first-rate cast, attractively costumed by Collin Ranney, rescues it. In the final analysis, Hot N’ Cole, if less than stellar, is a pleasant diversion.