“Kiss Me, Kate” is a loosely plotted scenario about the out-of-town tryout of a musical version of Shakespeare’s “The Taming of the Shrew,” directed by and starring an Orson Wellesian ham named Fred Graham alongside his ex-wife Lili Vanessi.

Banking on the convention of two lovers “who can’t live with each other and can’t live without each other,” Cole Porter brilliantly captures the self-delusion and overwrought masochism of romantic egotism.

Thrown together in the out-of-town tryout, Fred and Lili discover the love that binds their considerable egos together, even though Lili is engaged to marry a powerful senator and Fred is involved in a dalliance with a sexy young thing in the show. They realize, much like Kate and Petruchio in the original play, that they are bound to each other.