Entertaining ‘Kate’ kissed with wit at the Old Globe

Now please stand for the national anthem of the Republic of Guys Can Just Die. (Also known as the Cole Porter song “I Hate Men.”)

When Anastasia Barzee, as the righteously spiteful Katherine, launches into that stately yet venomous declaration of purpose in the Old Globe’s boisterous “Kiss Me, Kate,” it captures nearly everything that clicks about this savvy and crackling production.

It’s not just the wealth of talent onstage — although the winningly sardonic Barzee has such impressive operatic chops that a single sustained passage in “I Hate Men” could be timed by sundial.

It’s also rooted in the way director Darko Tresnjak shakes any fustiness off this beloved, Porter-scored chestnut, honoring and yet subtly updating the work (dicey gender politics and all) without stooping to stick air quotes around the whole blessed thing.

So when Barzee delivers that never-ending note — beneath a (very) nude statue of Poseidon, which she delights in both admiring and abusing — she mimics the sprawled-out posture of a woman in labor. And then adds, with a note of resignation: “It’s a boy.”

Rebirthing American classics was, of course, one of Tresnjak’s specialties at the Globe, where he stylishly revived such works as “The Women” and “The Pleasure of His Company.”

The onetime artistic linchpin at the Balboa Park theater has since applied his signature wit and exuberant visual imagination to the Tony Award-winning “A Gentleman’s Guide to Love and Murder” — which, like “Kate,” was a co-production of Hartford Stage, where Tresnjak is now artistic chief.

This Globe homecoming shows Tresnjak at the top of his form, putting up a show that’s simultaneously biting and effervescent.

“Kate” is, in its own over-the-top way, a complex piece of work — a play-within-a-play that pairs Shakespeare with the tropes of mid-20th-century musical comedy.

The conceit of Bella and Samuel Spewack's 1948 story is that a diehard troupe is putting up an unintentionally nutty musical version of the Bard’s “The Taming of the Shrew” in Baltimore (the introductory number “Another Op’nin, Another Show” captures the excitable backstage vibe with aplomb).

Its stars are a pair to rival (or perhaps surpass) the Shakespeare play’s warring Kate and Petruchio: The stage diva turned movie star Lilli Vanessi (Barzee), and the egocentric theater actor-director Fred Graham (Mike McGowan).

Lilli and Fred happen to have their own embattled romantic past: The show’s opening falls on the first anniversary of their divorce, an occasion they toast with a brief but affecting moment of tenderness on the song “Wunderbar.”

And just as in Shakespeare, there’s a secondary love saga: That of the guy-crazy Lois Lane (funny and feisty Megan Sikora), who plays Kate’s sister Bianca, and her would-be main man Bill Calhoun (Tyler Hanes), who plays the suitor Lucentio.

As the action moves back and forth between backstage Baltimore and onstage Padua (the setting of “Shrew”), Barzee pairs beautifully with McGowan, whose own powerful singing voice and strutting comic touch drive winning renditions of “Where is the Life That Late I Led” and more.

The show’s whole loopy universe is wonderfully realized, from the colorful whimsy of Alexander Dodge’s Padua set (contrasted with the dingy backstage), to Fabio Toblini’s comical, codpiece-happy costuming, to Philip S. Rosenberg’s dynamic lighting and Jonathan Deans’ crisp sound.

Music director Kris Kukul’s 14-member orchestra gives the score a sumptuous abundance of textures, and choreographer Peggy Hickey once again makes an ideal creative partner for Tresnjak (with particularly athletic and appealing work on Bianca’s amusing “Tom, Dick or Harry”).

The excellent performances (by the leads as well as James T. Lane, Aurelia Williams, Wayne M. Pretlow, Mike Sears and more) make even a number such as “Too Darn Hot” (which has always felt a little loosely connected to the story) a rousing crowd-pleaser.

And there’s no forgetting the gangster duo of Brendan Averett and Joel Blum, who stumble onstage to deliver those matchless Porter lyrics (“If she says your behavior is heinous / just kick her right in the Coriolanus”) from “Brush Up Your Shakespeare.”

Those two might’ve stolen the show if they didn’t have so many partners in sublime crime.