The Middletown Press (Middletown, CT)
‘Something Rotten’ spins fresh laughs at Shubert Theatre
Matthew Baker as the Bard keeps it real in 5-show run at Shubert
⏩ Shubert Theatre, 247 College St., New Haven. Friday-Sunday, Nov. 30-Dec. 2, 8 p.m. Friday, 2 and 8 p.m. Saturday, 1 and 6:30 p.m. Sunday. $39-$126. 203-5625666. shubert.com
In “Something Rotten,” the hit Broadway musical performing Friday through Sunday at the Shubert Theatre, Matthew Baker’s ongoing challenge is convincing his audience that he is the greatest writer in the world, no less than William Shakespeare, that prolific Bard of Avon (sound cue applause).
Yet Baker, who lived the first 25 of his 30 years in his native England, doesn’t fold or even quake under the pressure of such a charge. As his native accent sweetly passes your ear, you figure he’s a natural for the role since he looks kind of like the guy in countless paintings and renderings of Shakespeare.
“You might think,” said Baker, en route from Pennsylvania to Virginia, “that a lot of people would think: you got the accent, you’re just playing yourself. But, as any actor would know, you’re never playing yourself. It’s very strange.”
“Something Rotten,” which just closed its Broadway run nearly two years ago following an impressive 708 performances, is something of a dark-horse hit. An original theater piece, “Something Rotten!” is a blue moon among musicals. None of the show’s authors — the Kirkpatrick brothers Wayne (music and lyrics) and Karey (music, lyrics, and book), or John O’Farrell (book) — yet bear brand names. They do nonetheless conjure a rollicking and impishly saucy blast of merry, old England, circa 1595.
Director Casey Nicholaw, who has staged such flashy, fat hits as “The Book of Mormon” and “Mean Girls,” is a big, hot brand name. Together, the show’s four creators shake and stir jiggers of brassy comedy, British Music Hall and bawdy history in telling their story of Nick and Nigel Bottom, two playwrights who can’t get arrested with Big Bill Shakespeare, writing away like Stephen King just up the cobblestone street. When a historically familiar soothsayer tips off the Bottoms that all the next rage in the theater is a “musical,” the brothers build the bandwagon on which all future generations of fans will gladly jump.
The trick for Baker to playing the world’s most celebrated and studied poetplaywright, he said, is “keeping with what I believe what Shakespeare would be in this 21st century of ours. But also we’re playing Renaissance England in a contemporary way,” Baker added.
As Baker claimed, he got the role in large measure because of his Britishness, if you Will.
“The director ... hired me based on the fact that I was British,” Baker said, referring to associate director Steve Bebout, “and, as you’ll see in the production, I don’t want to give too much away, but in the second act, I have to play the character that’s introduced from Yorkshire. So being able to have that in your back pocket is good.”
According to Baker, neither he nor his cast mates much need concern themselves with Streep-like regional accents.
“It wasn’t imperative,” he said. “On Broadway and the first national tour, they did not have that (mandate). Christian Borle, who played the role on Broadway, had that slight, British twang to it.
“After the show,” Baker said, “when we meet audience members to say hello and sign autographs, some who haven’t read their programs are genuinely surprised that I’m British.”
Baker’s most persistent challenge is resisting the temptation to play Shakespeare (who was an actor as well as playwright) a tad over the top.
“Sometimes I think the hardest thing for me is to not be too — I don’t want to say — animated with it,” Baker said. “It still has to ring some kind of truth of who this guy was. He’s definitely got an ego. But, you know, back in the day, he was the main man. The way we demonstrate him in the show, he has all the crowds after him. I always say he’s the rock star of the day, and you’ll see that in the show. So ... definitely his ego comes out a few times in the show.”
One of the show’s aces in the hole, besides its universal accessibility, is that “Something Rotten” is relatively intimate, as far as big musical hits go. That perceptible connection with the audience breeds a dash of spontaneity in performance, yet stops well short of ad-libbing.
“There’s breaking the fourth wall on a rare couple of occasions,” Baker said. “But, for the most part, we’re having so much fun out there in our own scenes.”
Since the audiences’ reactions vary from region to region, if not from city to city, Baker said that the cast had to listen to the audience’s reactions with “attend ears,” as Hamlet might have said in an early draft.
“We definitely found that out. The most exciting part is that we have to ride the wave of laughter, either way. Some jokes are made more so for the East Coast, some for the West,” said Baker, who will perform “Something Rotten” in South Korea at tour’s end. “We haven’t been far out West yet, so we’re not sure how they’re going to react. It’s a challenge for us, but every night we’re learning new things. How to make a laugh, how not to push. You need to let the audience decide what’s funny, and, for sure, we’ve learned as we go along.”