By Lauren Yarger
Shakespeare's a rock star, but his closest rivals, the Bottom Brothers, have come up with a great new concept to battle his fame with all of those plays -- a musical!
That's the zany concept behind Something Rotten!, the new hit musical conceived by brothers Karey and Wayne Kirkpatrick, who write the music and lyrics. Karey has written the music for some Disney films and Grammy Award winner Wayne has written for pop, country and Christian music stars. Karey teams with John O'Farrell, one of the United Kingdom's best know comic authors and script writers, for the very funny book. Kudos also to the marketing team, which prior to opening, displayed banners on the theater with pull-out quotes from the New York Times saying, "We Haven't See it Yet!"
It's 1590 England, home of the Renaissance, and the theatrical troupe run by manager Nick Bottom (Brian D'Arcy James) and his poet/writer brother , Nigel (John Cariani), plan to produce a brand new play about Richard II! They were inspired by the success of their theatrical rival, Shakespeare (a hysterical Christian Borle) who made a killing with Richard III and now is the talk of all England. But blast! -- the bard decides to go back in time and writes his own version of Richard II, which of course, is a monster hit like everything else the swaggering, scream/faint-producing writer of iambic pentameter does.
Facing economic collapse, especially when loan shark Shylock (Gerry Vichi) comes to collect his debt, Nick is desperate to find a way to provide for the troupe and his feisty wife, Bea (and energetic and amusing Heidi Blickenstaff), who offers to get a job. It's the '90s, but job opportunities for women still are a bit scarce for women in Elizabethan England, so Bea has to don a disguise to pass as a man. (Gregg Barnes designs the many costumes; Josh Marquette does hair and Melagros Medina-Cerdeira does makeup).
For help, Nick consults the most famous fortune teller of the time, Nostradamus (Brad Oscar), to try to get a beat on what Shakepeare's most famous play of all time will be. He'll just produce it first! Nostradamus gets some images from the future and discovers something called a "musical" will be all the rage, where actors suddenly burst into song for no apparent reason and dance around the stage.
Nick immediately sets to creating the phenomenon, but the visions Nostradamus gets are a bit sketchy resulting in bits and pieces of many musicals coming together in an extravaganza entitled, "Omelette, the Musical" (thanks to a mispronunciation of Hamlet.) Theater lovers will thoroughly enjoy the scrambled mess that brings to mind the villager's telling of the history of Joseph Smith's religion in The Book of Mormon with a bunch of tap-dancing eggs in the mix (Casey Nicholaw directs and choreographs).
Writer Nigel is a bit hesitant with the ridiculous sounding material for Omelette and would much rather develop his idea for a man tortured with asking himself whether he should be or not be. He also has his mind on something else: forbidden love with the beautiful poetry-loving Portia (Kate Reinders -- think young Kristin Chenoweth), the daughter of uptight Puritan Brother Jeremiah (Brooks Ashmanskas), who wants to shut down all the theaters because of their immoral nature (this despite the fact that he seems to be repressing some homosexual lust of his own. Of course. Just once, I would love to see a "Christian" character on stage who is not a repressed homosexual.....)
Meanwhile, there's a ridiculously funny concert given by Shakespeare in the park (what a concept!) where Borle excels at shaking his stuff and feeling the love while presenting his latest sonnet in musical form.
Much mayhem ensues when Shakespeare goes under cover as an actor in the Bottom Brothers troupe.
Something Rotten! is anything but. It's fresh and funny, with plenty of out-loud laughs and a couple of showstopping numbers (Phil Reno directs the music and provides vocal arrangements). Nicholaw achieves spot-on performances from D'Arcy James, Borle and Blickenstaff as well as supporting characters like the comedic Peter Bartlett, as Lord Clapham, the Bottom Brothers' reluctant patron. The one place the director misses is in the miscasting of playwright Cariani (Almost Maine) in the role of Nigel, where "indeed, he does not fit" to quote the Bard.
The musical is up for numerous awards, including Tonys for Best Musical, Best Direction, Choreography, Best Book, Score, Orchestrations (by Larry Hochman), Costumes, and the performances by James, Borle and Oscar.
Something Rotten! proves that all the world's a stage at the St. James Theatre, 246 west 44th St., NYC. Performances are Tuesday and Thursday at 7 pm; Wednesday at 2 and 8 pm; Friday at 8 pm; Saturday at 2 and 8 pm; Sunday at 3 pm. Tickets are $37.00 - $142.00: http://rottenbroadway.com.
Christians might also like to know:
-- Language
-- God's name taken in vain
-- Double entendre sexual references in the dialogue
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