Who is this Anita Gates you speak of?

A.G.’s journalistic triumphs over 25 years at The New York Times include drinking with Bea Arthur (at a Trump hotel), Wendy Wasserstein (at an Italian restaurant) and Peter O’Toole (in his trailer on a mini-series set near Dublin). It is sheer coincidence that these people are now dead.

At The New York Times, she has been Arts & Leisure television editor and co-film editor, a theater reviewer on WQXR Radio, a film columnist for the Times TV Book and an editor in the Culture, Book Review, Travel, National, Foreign and Metro sections. Her first theater review for The Times appeared in 1997, assessing “Mrs. Cage,” a one-act about a housewife suspected of shooting her favorite supermarket box boy. The review was mixed.

Outside The Times, A.G. has been the author of four nonfiction books; a longtime writer for travel magazines, women's magazines and travel guidebooks; a lecturer at universities and for women’s groups; and a moderator for theater, book, film and television panels at the 92nd Street Y and the Paley Center for Media.

If she were a character on “Mad Men,” she’d be Peggy.

'Kiss Me, Kate' Is Back, and I'm Plagiarizing Brooks Atkinson

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WOMAN IN WHITE Kelli O’Hara as Lilli Vanessi playing Shakespeare’s Kate Minola in the Roundabout Theater Company’s 2019 revival of “Kiss Me, Kate.”

SOMETIMES I FEEL like such an amateur when I reflect on the insightful, perceptive, hyperliterate theater critics of old — the kind of guys who had theaters named for them — so it amused me when I found Brooks Atkinson’s New York Times review of “Kiss Me, Kate,” from Dec. 31, 1948, when it was brand-new.

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“Occasionally, by some baffling miracle, “ Atkinson, who was The Times’s chief theater critic from 1925 to 1960 (with a brief break for World War II), wrote, “everything seems to drop gracefully into its appointed place in the case of a song show, and that is the case here.” Ha! He didn’t know how to explain it either. (In photo: Patricia Morison and Alfred Drake on the show’s original-original-cast-album cover.)

Yes! “Some baffling miracle.” A good 70 years later, that’s still the case. Witness Roundabout’s new production of “Kiss Me, Kate,” which opened at Studio 54 on March 14. The New York Times review called the female star “the sublime Kelli O’Hara” and described the number “So in Love” as “sung so gorgeously it almost melts the theater,” but I was skeptical. And I was ridiculously, embarrassingly wrong.

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LONG DISTANCE In a dressing-room scene, Lilli gets to speak to the president — Harry S Truman — on a call from Washington. Her ex (Will Chase) pretends not to be impressed. (Set design by David Rockwell.)

YOU KNOW THE ONLY reason I wasn’t excited about this revival? Because I had enjoyed the last one so much. I saw no way — or reason — to try to improve on the sparkling performances of Brian Stokes Mitchell and Marin Mazzie (who died, much too young, last September). When was that revival? Five years ago? Oops. It was 1999. Well, that’s just how vivid and memorable it was.

But everybody involved with doing this new “Kiss Me, Kate” — including the performers, the Roundabout Theater Company and the director (Scott Ellis) — were right to mount this production. And I have already decided where my vote for best choreography is going: to Warren Carlyle.

For those of you who are very, very young or just new to Broadway theater: “Kiss Me, Kate” is the story of a divorced couple, Lilli Vanessi (Kelli O’Hara) and Fred Graham (Will Chase), who are thrown together again, starring in a touring production of a musical version of “The Taming of the Shrew.” The show alternates between scenes and numbers from that imaginary musical and the backstage life of the cast and crew.

And a couple of well-dressed thugs who are there to collect on a rash gambling debt. The thugs (John Pankow and Lance Coadie Williams) have the show’s most beloved novelty number, “Brush Up Your Shakespeare,” and look dashing in their fedoras and gangster suits. (Costume design by Jeff Mahshie.)

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BACKSTAGE VISITORS From left, John Pankow, Will Chase and Lance Coadie Williams in a tense scene.

Now let’s talk about the music. How many hit songs did “Cats” have? One: “Memory.” Name a song from “The Phantom of the Opera” that isn’t in the TV commercial. Ha! Here’s what Cole Porter gave us in “Kiss Me, Kate”:

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EVERYBODY COMPLAINS ABOUT THE WEATHER The “Too Darn Hot” number, set in the alley behind the theater.

“So in Love”

“Another Op’nin’, Another Show”

“Wunderbar”

“Too Darn Hot”

“From This Moment On”

And there are several others that work beautifully in context but didn’t make it quite as big on the hit parade. Consider Fred’s “Where Is the Life That Late I Led?,” Lois’s “Always True to You in My Fashion” and Lilli’s “I Hate Men.”

Speaking of the show’s gender politics, slight adjustments have been made. Most notably, Lilli’s late-in-the-show number “I Am Ashamed That Women Are So Simple” is now “I Am Ashamed That People Are So Simple.” And no one, male or female, who has ever done something stupid because they were in love could argue with that sentiment. The consensus is that Fred can still spank Lilli because she also throws things at him.

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NASTY BOYS From left, Will Burton, Rick Faugno, Stephanie Styles and Corbin Bleu doing the naughty number “Tom, Dick or Harry.”

The number “Tom, Dick or Harry,” sung and danced by Bianca (Stephanie Styles), Kate’s much mellower younger sister, and her three suitors (Corbin Bleu, Will Burton and Rick Faugno). There’s a special, winking emphasis on Dick, particularly in the choreography, which sounds obvious and kind of adolescent. But somehow — another baffling miracle? — it’s adorable.

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THEY WERE MUSICAL TOO Sam and Bella Spewak, who wrote the book of “Kiss Me, Kate,” in an undated photo.

Finally, let’s pay tribute to Sam and Bella Spewack. Because everybody knows who Cole Porter, who wrote the music, was. The Spewacks, the husband-and-wife writing team who wrote the book, won Tonys for their efforts. Both were New Yorkers and immigrants (he from Ukraine, she from Romania) who actually worked as news correspondents in Moscow for several years in the 1920s. “Kiss Me, Kate” is their best-known stage work. Back in Hollywood, they had earned an Oscar nomination for the screenplay of “My Favorite Wife” (1940). Friends said their marriage had enough ups, downs, farce and slapstick to keep them inspired for a lifetime. He died in 1971; she died in 1990.

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Studio 54, 254 West 54th Street, roundabouttheatre.org., 2 hours 30 minutes. Opening night: March 14.. Limited run. Originally scheduled to close on June 2. Extended through June 30.

Off Broadway's Cup Overfloweth

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