Something Rotten! @ Theatre Frisco
—Jan Farrington
Welcome to the Renaissance
Not the one in Italy or France
No, the one in England, the one where William Shakespeare
Is cream of the crop….
In the age that’s golden, the olden days are over
We bid them adieu—well, Hallelu!
Welcome to the Renaissance
Where everything is new
But aye, there’s always a “rub”—a problem. It’s 1595, Will Shakespeare’s on top, and the rest of England’s eager, talented young writers feel sad and ignored. Will, Will, Will. Does he need to hog all the glory?
Theatre Frisco’s jumping (and pretty much sold out, alas) production of the Shakespeare spoof Something Rotten! is a tall tale of a musical about two theater-makers, Nigel and Nick Bottom, fed up with the buzz around the Bard (“God, I Hate Shakespeare”). “Why is he THE Bard?” asks Nick (Sterling Beard). “I’m a bard too!” His dreamy brother Nigel (Nathan May) writes poetry and longs for love. Nick, just about broke, is married to Bea (Samantha Snow), a gutsy woman who’s looking for a job to help out. Why not, she asks—“it’s the ‘90s!”
This production, directed by TF’s Neale Whitmore, has a terrific live band onstage led by music director M. Shane Hurst, a cast brim-full of strong, Broadway-style singers—and plenty of comedy (from broad to witty), with a heart-tug here and there. The lively dances are choreographed by Emily Leekha, and there’s a ton of good tap-dancing—in full Elizabethan costume, not something you see every day. (The show’s tap choreographer is Megan Kelly Bates.) Elaborate costumes (from Michael Robinson) are the norm, with Shakespeare and friends the glitziest of all.
But back to our story (book by John O’Farrell and Karey Kirkpatrick; songs by Karey and brother Wayne Kirkpatrick). Desperate to get ahead of Shakespeare, Nick finds a cut-rate soothsayer, Thomas Nostradamus (Alex Rain), nephew of the Real Deal prognosticating Nostradamus. Thomas does see things, but his visions are a bit scrambled. (That’s an egg pun; you’ll get it later.)
Nick wants to know where theater is going in the future. What’s the Next Big Thing? “Musicals,” says Nostradamus. They don’t know what he’s talking about, but after Tom explains (“A Musical”) the boys give it a first try with a light-hearted romp called “The Black Death.”
Meantime (there’s a lot of plot), Shakespeare holds a rally (“Will Power”) and (as he does) steals the Bottom Brother’s theater notebook. Nigel falls for a pretty Puritan girl, Portia (Rae Hilman), whose father is a theater-hating street preacher, Brother Jeremiah (Doug Fowler). And Bea turns up in britches doing one tough job after another. But when she realizes she’s pregnant, Nick jumps into high gear. He must find a way to make real money. Back to the soothsayer with a new question: What’s Shakespeare’s best play going to be?
And here, we’re cutting you off. No more plot. We’ll only say, the name of the Bottom Brother’s Shakespeare-shaking musical does rhyme with Hamlet…but there are dancing eggs, not Danish princes.
If you can find a ticket, this is a fun show, and a cast worth seeing, including the “giving it all” members of the ensemble. Beard’s determined Nick has a grand Gaston-ish voice, and both Eric Feldman as the Minstrel and Alex Rain as Nostradamus sell their songs well. May’s Nigel and Hilman’s Portia are sweet, sparky young lovers, sure they’ll find a way around the barriers between them. Snow’s Bea is a woman before her time—but doesn’t let that stop her. Peter Tremmel is a hoot as theater moneybags “Shylock, the Very Nice Jew” (the word “producer” hasn’t been invented yet).
And Anthony Holmes hits all the right notes as the ego-driven Shakespeare: whipping up a frenzy among the groupies, disguising himself to trick Nigel out of good ideas, and doing a great Jagger/Prince/Bowie mashup in his big number, “Hard to be the Bard.” It’s tricky to play a rock star and a silly git all at once—but Holmes pulls it off, no worries.
Welcome to the Renaissance.
WHEN: Through August 14
WHERE: Frisco Discovery Center Black Box Theater (8004 North Dallas Parkway)
