“Something Rotten!” depicts brothers who are rivals of Shakespeare.
“Something Rotten!” is a musical about two brothers who are trying to find success at the same time as some guy named William Shakespeare. The SHN presentation — with book by John O’Farrell and Karey Kirkpatrick and music and lyrics by Karey and Wayne Kirkpatrick, opening Tuesday, Aug. 15, at the Orpheum Theatre — isn’t the first play or movie to take the Bard not so literally. Whether inventing a modern take or an original idea based on one of his plays or his biography, many writers and composers have been inspired by Shakespeare.
Bay Area playwright Amy Freed is familiar with rethinking Shakespeare, as seen by her play “The Beard of Avon.” (see description below): “Shakespeare’s work is vivid to us, but the record of the man’s life is as blank as his portrait. What we have of him is in the voice in the plays,” says Freed, who has a new Will-style adaptation, “Shrew!!,” about a 16th century woman who rewrites his worst play, opening at South Coast Rep in March. “We’re haunted! And we all want to somehow get inside him. It’s a form of frustrated love. And since we can’t know, we keep on inventing him. I know from writing ‘Beard of Avon’ how addictive it becomes to play at being Shakespeare.”
Here are some examples of Shakespeare being transformed.
“West Side Story”: There have been many adaptations of “Romeo and Juliet,” but Leonard Bernstein’s music, Arthur Laurents’ book and Jerome Robbins’ choreography take this musical to the streets of New York. It’s the gang war of the late 1950s between the Sharks and the Jets, and it paid off bigtime with 10 Oscars for the 1961 film, including best picture, best director (Robert Wise) and best supporting actress (Rita Moreno). Side note: The Tony Awardnominated 1957 Broadway production lost out to “The Music Man” for best musical. “Kiss Me, Kate”: It’s about Broadway-type thespians performing “The Taming of the Shrew.” The Cole Porter musical supposedly drew its inspiration from spats during a 1935 production of “Shrew” between the famous husbandand-wife team of Alfred Lunt and Lynn Fontanne. “10 Things I Hate About You”: An even more modern update of “The Shrew.” This 1999 film that takes place at a Tacoma, Wash., high school is considered a breakout film for three of the stars, Julia Stiles as Katarina Stratford, Heath Ledger as Patrick Verona and Joseph Gordon-Levitt as Cameron James. “Forbidden Planet”: A science-fiction version of “The Tempest,” the 1956 film stars Walter Pidgeon, Anne Francis, Leslie Nielsen and Robby the Robot. “My Own Private Idaho”: Gus Van Sant’s 1991 movie about hustlers, starring River Phoenix and Keanu Reeves, has his own take on Shakespeare’s Henry IV and Henry V plays. Reeves seems to be Henry V, portraying a rich, rebellious kid, with supporting actor Bob Pigeon reminding us of Falstaff. “Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead”: Tom Stoppard’s award-winning play focuses on two minor characters from “Hamlet.” Most of the play takes place “in the wings” with the major characters making small appearances and the two friends of Hamlet being
confused offstage about what is happening during the production.
“Ran”: Akira Kurosawa directs this epic based on “King Lear.” The film also is based on a Japanese warlord who had three loyal sons whom Kurosawa wanted to make disloyal.
“Shakespeare in Love”:
There’s a new television series (“Will”) based on the early career of Shakespeare, but “Shakespeare in Love” (1998) probably paved the way with seven Academy Awards, including best picture, best actress (Gwyneth Paltrow), best supporting actress ( Judi Dench as Queen Elizabeth I) and best director ( John Madden). One of the more memorable moments in the film was Joseph Fiennes’ Shakespeare’s original idea for “Romeo and Juliet,” being called “Romeo and Ethel the Pirate’s Daughter.”
The new TNT series stars Laurie Davidson as a Bard with a rock ’n’ roll vibe. It starts off with him leaving his wife and three children behind in Stratford and selling a play to theater owner James Burbage (Colm Meaney). Naturally, he falls in love with Burbage’s daughter (Olivia DeJonge).
“The Beard of Avon”:
Freed’s play deals with the question of who wrote the Bard’s plays and what role he and others (including his wife) had in presenting other writers’ plays under the coveted Shakespeare name. In 2002, then-Chronicle Theater Critic Robert Hurwitt wrote about the ACT production: “Freed revels in details of the Elizabethan theater, in humanizing the famous (Shakespeare obsesses about his receding hairline) and in playfully framing contemporary notions in Shakespearean diction (‘I have a most pernicious deficit of my attention’s ordering’).”
“Slings and Arrows”:
This Canadian television comedy series dealt with a fictional theater festival and the company members’ toils and trouble. In each of the three seasons, the troupe would stumble along as they tried to put on such plays as “Hamlet,” “Macbeth,” “King Lear” and a hilarious, cringe-worthy production of “Romeo and Juliet.”