Bawdy Bard meets mashed-up musicals
‘Something Rotten’ (and raucous) at Little Theatre of Virginia Beach
VIRGINIA BEACH — To flee or not to flee? That is the question when most folks hear the hallowed, hoary name of William Shakespeare. (Excessive alliteration alert! As Shakespeare notes, it’s an occupational hazard.)
Some still suffer from the sophomore slump induced by some pushy English prof (full disclosure: just such a one was I) insisting they understand and love the Bard, a guy some experts say didn’t even exist. The Earl of Oxford sneaked in one night and wrote those plays and sonnets? As if!
Resisters to Will’s wiles finally have their song: “I
Hate Shakespeare,” the second number in “Something Rotten,” a spoof of Shakespeare mixed incongruously but hilariously with a send-up of American musicals, now running at the Little Theatre of Virginia Beach.
The pro-Will faction here — the Bardolaters who would never flee their idol — treat the Swan of Avon like a rock star, screaming over his every sibilant syllable.
You know about modern musical adaptations of Shakespeare — e.g., “Taming of the Shrew” turned into “Kiss Me Kate,” “Romeo and Juliet” morphed into “West Side Story.” Forget them. Instead, we have an original Elizabethan-era plot that melds a dozen or so Shakespearean works (most often “Hamlet”) with a mash-up of 94 references from 54 American musicals. Think Reduced Shakespeare Company meets the cast of “Forbidden Broadway.”
Here’s the setup: There were once two brothers — Nick Bottom (named for the character who makes an ass of himself in “A Midsummer Night’s Dream”) and Nigel Bottom (he’s made up). Nick (charismatic Cody Hall, star of this show) claims to be a Shakespeare hater, though he privately confesses he’s just jealous; Nigel (the gentler, winsome John Eidman), Nick’s writing partner and the real poet in the family, adores London’s current sensation Shakespeare. Yes, our play is set in the 1590s, though it premiered in 2015 and was written by — wait a significant minute — two other brothers: composer Wayne Kirkpatrick and lyricist Karey Kirkpatrick (screenwriter of “Chicken Run”), the latter of whom got help on the book by John O’Farrell, his non brother.
Mind you, Shakespeare parodies have been around almost since the Bard was birthed, with the 19th century being particularly known for “burlesques” starring Frederick Robson, 1821-64. (This is according to the Folger Shakespeare Library, which never jests.) Even Mark Twain did Shakespeare parody — the riotous mash-up of “Hamlet” and “Macbeth” done by the con men in “Huckleberry Finn” (1884).
Shakespeare parodies such as “Drop Dead, Juliet!,” “Football Romeo” and “Hamlet, Zombie Killer of Denmark” can be ordered for high school performances from theatrefolk.com. True! Pioneer Drama Service offers a parody, “Omelette: Chef of Denmark”
(2006) by Charlie Lovett.
The last is not to be confused with “Something Rotten,” which also contains endless jokes about eggs. In his zeal to find an idea for a play, Nick Bottom consults a soothsayer named Nostradamus (no, not the famous one — his brother Thomas, amusingly played by Robert Shirley). Nostradamus is to tell Nick the title of Shakespeare’s as-yet-unwritten greatest hit. Nostradamus “foresees” “Hamlet” but mishears the title as “Omelette,” leading to a superfluity of yoke jokes, a tap dance with whisks, plus an eggs-istential moment when humans don full-body eggshells. If this sounds like a bit much, it is. But the enthusiasm of the young actors blessedly gets us through it. It’s Monty Pythonian nonsense, but eggs-cellent in its way. (Glad that’s over?)
Director Jeff Seneca, a Virginia Beach math teacher and drama club sponsor in
regular life, puts his actors through the frenetic pacing necessary for a successful spoof. Katelyn Jackson, the costume designer, dresses 33 cast members in credible Elizabethan garb — except, perhaps, for Shakespeare’s chrome codpiece (still, kind of cool).
Zack Kattwinkel has the thankless job of playing the arrogant Bard. (The audience’s hearts must be with our real heroes, the Bottom Brothers, and their ladies.) Kattwinkel, adept at Shakespeare’s rock star gyrations, must also give the Great One a glimmer of self-doubt and humanity, which he accomplishes in the musical number
“It’s Hard to be the Bard.” Emory Redfearn is Nick Bottom’s pregnant wife
Bea (Beatrice in “Much Ado About Nothing”). Like her namesake, Bea’s a feisty but loving save-the-day feminist. She notes that a woman is already ruling England (Elizabeth, the first of that name). Bea predicts, “By the year 1600, women will be completely equal.” The Little Theatre audience, mostly female, moaned at that one.
Gentle Nigel Bottom, our poet (from whom Shakespeare is forever stealing familiar-to-us good lines) must, of course, have his own love interest. She is Portia (named for the strong, wise female in “The Merchant of Venice”).
She’s a Puritan with a father named Brother Jeremiah, the appropriately threatening Tyler Donohoo. He’s an anti-woman, pro-censorship bully who has to be outwitted for love to thrive. Portia, played by Sarah Schweit, convincingly latches on to her forbidden beau Nigel. And if there’s a Portia, there has to be a Shylock (also from “Merchant”) here played by community theater stalwart Clifford Hoffman as a Borscht Belt comedian. Hoffman, sporting peyot — Orthodox Jewish side curls — tiptoes close to the line of insensitivity to Jews, just as other company members in a fake-Gospel/Motown number, “We See the Light,” skate close to mocking Black singers. Seneca does, however, hold the line between parody and nasty travesty, wisely refusing to offend for a laugh.
The Shakespeare references in “Something Rotten” are fairly easy to catch: “Macbeth,” “Romeo and Juliet,” “Comedy of Errors,” “Richard II,” “Richard III,” “Henry
IV,” “V,” “VI” and others already mentioned get nods. When Nostradamus foresees Hamlet’s father’s murderer in his vision of the future play, he tells us Scar (instead of Claudius) did it. Anyone who’s ever seen both “Hamlet” and “The Lion King” is liable to make that same mistake! Disney writers, like Shakespeare, steal from the best. To list the visual and aural clues given to many dozens of the best-known American musicals would take too long (remember the 94 examples?) and spoil the fun.
The point is that Shakespeare was and is a great popular artist who should be just as accessible to Americans as “Annie” or “Cats” or “The Sound of Music” or “Dream Girls,” or … you get the idea. The humor in “Something
Rotten” can be risqué, sophomoric and very silly. You know how many slings and zingers you can take. To thine own self be true. I recommend you skip the QR-coded website, at least until after the show, and listen for the references yourself. It’s a great occasion for a “nudge, nudge — did you get that one?” contest. Recall the admonition given in “Kiss Me Kate” (but surprisingly not in “Rotten”): “Brush up your Shakespeare … and they’ll all kowtow.”