Musical theatre tickles the Bard: larky Something Rotten at the Freewill Shakespeare Festival, a review, Theater News

“Who on earth is goin’ to sit there while an actor breaks into song?” ambitious playwright/impresario Nigel Bottom wonders incredulously (in song, natch) in Something Rotten, the ingenious musical comedy hit now singing and dancing on the Heritage Amphitheatre stage in Hawrelak Park.

Funny he should ask.… Opening night of Something Rotten, the second of the Freewill Shakespeare Festival summer offerings in their long-awaited return to the park, was a test case for the seductive power, and amusement value, of musical theatre — and a demo.

The heavens opened. Not your “gentle rain from heaven,” to quote (as Something Rotten does), another Portia from another show by that full-of-himself fan magnet from Stratford. Nope. Mother Nature’s contribution on Canada Day night was a pounding deluge, with all the theatrical trimmings like percussion and lightning and apocalyptic cloud cover. The show got a tempest delay, of 15 minutes, with lighting by the Weird Sisters. From the big boisterous audience who’d sloshed across the park to be under the big top could be heard the classic cheery Edmonton summertime greeting, “at least it’s not snowing.”

And we all had a lot of fun.

As the minstrel (Renell Doneza) sings at in the rousing opening production number Welcome to the Renaissance, “we bring it to you with much ado.” Well, exactly. Freewill has paired Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing, which closed last weekend, with a musical. The company, incidentally, hasn’t gone musical theatre since the rock musical version of Two Gentlemen of Verona nearly two decades ago.

Produced under the Freewill umbrella by two community musical and dance groups (Edmonton Pops Orchestra and Shelley’s Dance Company) and directed by Freewill’s artistic director David Horak, Something Rotten, a 2015 Broadway hit currently in blockbuster revival mode at Stratford, has an added attraction. Freewill’s illustrious playwright-in-residence is himself a character in this larky high-spirited concoction by the American showbiz brothers Kirkpatrick, Karey and Wayne, with collaboration on the book by the Brit John O’Farrell.

As the title suggests, it’s embedded with a clever mash-up of sly, cheeky allusions and jokes, of every size, passing or head-on, to the sacred oeuvre of the Bard. And the musical theatre references, a witty jumble, never stop coming at you, A Chorus Line, Annie, Rent, The Lion King, The Sound of Music, Les Miz, Cats, Phantom…. It’s enough to make you giddy.

So, Shakespeare AND musical theatre, a delish and diverting treat for fans of either persuasion, often non-binary in that regard. It’s so amusingly apt a choice for a Shakespeare company that you just can’t help wishing Freewill had been able to afford alternating the two shows in rep, so you could see the actors in both.

But I digress. And Something Rotten, in which the 19-member cast is outfitted in surprisingly extravagant period detail by Karlie Christie, does look good. Here’s the gist: we meet sibling playwrights, Nick (Stephen Allred) and Nigel (Eli Yaschuk) Bottom. The Bottom brothers are struggling to create a hit and make their mark, and stave off bankruptcy, in the cutthroat commercial theatre scene of 1595, dominated by cocky, entitled rock star Shakespeare (played by Brian Christensen with an amusing swagger, in a series of poses).

Eli Yaschuk, Melenie Reid, Stephen Allred in Something Rotten, Freewill Shakespeare Festival. Photo by Jenn Galm

Nigel, a sweet-natured romantic poet, who’d rather write sonnets than sell out, is captured delightfully by Yaschuk. Nigel is a big Bard fan. This is beyond irritating to Nick, played by Allred with a very funny air of eye-rolling exasperation. He seethes fury (musically of course). God, I Hate Shakespeare (“he’s a hack with a knack for stealing anything he can”) might send ripples of sympathy down your spine if you flunked English 30. The sibling chemistry is captivating.

Nico Maiorana and Stephen Allred in Something Rotten, Freewill Shakespeare Festival. Photo by Jenn Galm

Desperate for inspiration, Nick secretly consults a soothsayer named Nostradamus (well, his nephew Thomas actually), played with funny histrionic excess by Nico Maiorana, to find out what the next big thing in theatre will be. Musicals, Nostradamus thinks after elaborate consultation with his inner visionary. “What the hell are musicals?” And in a showstopper choreographed by Shelley Tookey, with an ensemble in tap shoes doing riffs from every musical and choreographer you can think of, he explains the concept to his perplexed client. “You slap your lap, then finger snap. That’s when you know it’s time to tap….”

Despite its chorus of Grim Reapers, Nick’s first attempt, The Black Death about the bubonic plague, doesn’t impress the investor. Go figure. So Nostradamus tries again, this time to predict Shakespeare’s biggest hit, so the Bottoms can pre-empt it. He’s close but no cigar: “Omelette the Musical” (possibly with ham, and a Danish).

In a comic and well-sung performance Melenie Reid plays Nick’s wife Bea as a sort of theatrical Renaissance suffragette. And as the Puritan poetry-groupie Nigel falls instantly, and dangerously, in love with, Alyson Horne is funny, too. Martin Galba is Shylock, a persistently stage-struck money-lender who’d do anything to be in a show. 

Something Rotten, Freewill Shakespeare Festival. Photo by Jenn Galm

You can’t expect to hear every word of a word-filled musical out doors, in the middle of a storm. That would not be reasonable. The sound isn’t entirely consistent, but it’s surprisingly good under the circumstances, after the opening number. And up against a battering by the elements, Horak’s cast, among them experienced community players and recent musical theatre grads, have variable vocal success, understandably. The leads are strong, and the ensemble fearlessly tucks into Tookey’s choreography, which gets its comedy counterpointing the doublet-and-hose setting against contemporary musical theatre moves. Wearing tap shoes and not cleats when everything’s wet takes chutzpah.

The live band of 11 (!) led by musical director Michael Clark of the Edmonton Pops Orchestra, is an unexpected luxury. And what fun it is to be with an audience that can pick Rent out of the air just by hearing a phrase or two.

Freewill is back. And you should be, too.

REVIEW

Something Rotten

Theatre: Freewill Shakespeare Festival, produced by Edmonton Pops Orchestra and Shelley’s Dance Company

Created by: Wayne Kirkpatrick and Karey Kirkpatrick (music and lyrics), Karey Kirkpatrick and John O’Farrell (book)

Directed by: David Horak

Starring: Stephen Allred, Eli Yaschuk, Brian Christensen, Melenie Reid, Alyson Horne, Nico Maiorana, Todd Hauck, Patrick Lynn, Martin Galba, Renell Doneza, and ensemble

Where: Heritage Amphitheatre, Hawrelak Park

Running: through July 12

Tickets: freewillshakespeare.com