Shakespeare song spoof is silly fun
To go or not to go? Go!
Welcome to the Renaissance. It’s a very entertaining time in “Something Rotten!” If you love musicals or the works of William Shakespeare, don’t miss the show at the Kravis Center, where it will be through Sunday.
The musical tells the story of Nick and Nigel Bottom, brothers languishing in the shadow of rock star Shakespeare in Elizabethan England. Nick’s manhood is challenged by his irrepressible wife Bea, who’s determined to work, and his prowess as a theater impresario is undermined by the preening Shakespeare’s success and adoring fans.
His younger brother, Nigel, is a talented poet and playwright, but he’s so modest that he doesn’t even realize when Shakespeare, whose work he adores, shamelessly filches his work.
The story is set in motion when Nick consults Nostradamus, the befuddled nephew of the famous seer, about the next big thing in theater so that he can trounce Shakespeare.
Nostradamus informs him that musicals will be all the rage, but his visions are so garbled that when Nick follows his advice, he comes up with “Omelette,” a song and dance show that quotes just about every famous musical and mixes in plot points and passages from Shakespeare’s “Hamlet.”
Brothers Karey and Wayne Kirkpatrick’s score is so lively and witty that you’d never know that they, and John O’Farrell — who
wrote the equally amusing book with Karey Kirkpatrick — have never before written a musical.
That’s thanks in part to Casey Nicholaw. His shrewd direction strikes the perfect balance between silliness and earnestness, as does his tongue-in-cheek choreography, with its lines of high-kicking dancers and nods to megamusicals from “West Side Story” to “A Chorus Line.”
Rob McClure as Nick deftly lands punch lines while exuding macho competitiveness and selfdoubt. Josh Grisetti’s Nigel is Nick’s sweet counterbalance. Adam Pascal as Shakespeare is smarmy enough, but he lacks the firepower to make a convincing superstar. Blake Hammond’s Nostradamus delights from his first predictions in the showstopper “A Musical” to his final quip.
The show makes a stab at a message with “to thine own self be true.” But let’s be truthful. It’s simply fun.