Word: porters
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With its whimsical story line, delightful if substanceless lyrics, and perfect comic mastery, it all seems familiar enough, but even the most devoted Porter afficianados probably will have trouble remembering You Never Know, Conceived by Porter as an intimate "chamber musical" with a small cast and none of the painstakingly choreographed routines so typical of commercialized Broadway, then as now, You Never Know might easily have remained forever unknown. When a debilitating horseback riding accident in 1937 left both of Portar's legs forever crippled, the Shuberts took the production into their own hands. Under their direction, "You Never Know...
...cast tremendously, and lumped in additional songs by other composers. Weighted down by such commercial dross, the show closed after one season and might be remembered now as nothing more than a Trivial Pursuit stumper were it not for the efforts of Paul Lazarus. Working closely with the Porter estate, director Lazarus reconstructed the show from the original manuscript, returning "You Never Know" to its original "chamber musical" conception for the 1982-83 Dorset Theatre Festival in Vermont...
...Know repeatedly reminds us just how much we do know. Imagine, if you will, a mere servant attempting to love a real person. You never know, it might work out, but only when the lady or gentleman in question is not really a lady or gentleman. At every opportunity, Porter shows Gaston and Maria unable to fathom the protocol of the Penthouse...
Obsessed by such mundanities of the rules of love, our lovers could just as easily master the rule laden world of a contemporary singles bar, but their story becomes entertainment through the familiar skill of Porter and the refreshingly polished performances of the small cast. We have come to expect much from Cole Porter, and You Never Know, featuring such familiar tunes as "By Candlelight," "At Long Last Love," and "Let's Misbehave," does not disappoint...
When the Shubert brothers took on You Never Know, they felt compelled to add a heavy coating of glitz. The result was a near-total disaster. By contrast, the Huntington troupe has remained faithful to Porter's original conception of the play, mounting a production that captures all of Porter's charm and many of his faults--among them, a rather sportsmanlike view of romance...