Sailing into Porter

Patti LuPone hits the high seas

Cole Porter gave the country just what it needed in 1934—a screwball musical comedy that raised spirits along with the standards of escapist entertainment.

Anything Goes, opening this month at Lincoln Center's Vivian Beaumont Theater, brings Patti LuPone (Broadway's EvitaJ back to the stage as Reno Sweeney, evangelist turned nightclub singer. The plummy role (once Ethel Merman's) is a natural for the toothy, big-voiced LuPone, and this shipboard story keeps her on deck most of the evening singing songs that are among the wittiest ever written— "I Get a Kick out of You,"

"You're the Top," and the title number, which breathlessly describes a "world. . . gone mad today. "The world, madder than ever, surely is ready—again—for a high-style nautical romp.

VANCE MUSE