Review: SOMETHING ROTTEN! at Kavli Theatre

There are certain plays of William Shakespeare which I would maintain are, for all creative and practical purposes, indestructible. Comedies, mainly. Unless you entrust a director from the Planet Moronia on the most destructive of psychedelic drugs and actors who are equally inept or brain dead, your stab at, say, A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM or TWELFTH NIGHT is probably going to generate smiles from your audiences.

It's early yet to make such a pronouncement, but SOMETHING ROTTEN!, the 2015 musical comedy about Shakespeare and the, ahem!, creation of musicals, feels like it could prove to be a similarly bullet-proof show. Am I placing this nugget written and scored by the Kirkpatrick brothers on par with The Bard? Not a whit! But if a playgoer knows anything about Shakespeare and/or musicals, then for sheer inventiveness, sweetness and curtain-to-curtain smiles, ROTTEN! has you covered. Director Richard Israel's production for 5-Star Theatricals at the Thousand Oaks Civic Arts Plaza checks every box and does so deliciously. Strong singing voices? Yup. Comedic chops? Absolutely! Dancers with the legs to bring home a pair of actual show-stoppers? Better believe it!

Given its gently spoofing bent and very clear love of the musical theatre genre, SOMETHING ROTTEN! is a show that can probably be updating and tweaking its own inside jokes as new musicals enter the zeitgeist. Israel and choreographer Michelle Elkin didn't get HAMILTON into the 5-Star production, but the striped shirt and arm cast worn by one of the chorus boys during the second half eleven o'clock number "Make an Omelette" are unmistakably Evan Hansen-ian. A future production may well find a way to reference FUN HOME which bested ROTTEN for the 2015 Best Musical Tony Award.

Another cheeky but subtle reference to evolving theatrical conditions in the 5-Star performance...when he arrives at a rehearsal, the Jewish money lender-turned-angel, Shylock (played by L. Michael Wells) is wearing what appears to be a KN95 mask, (which he quickly removes). This is the only incident in the entire production during which masked and vaccinated audience members at the Thousand Oaks Kavli Theatre might be pulled out of the COVID-free ROTTEN revelry and back to the present. And in a musical that also contains a song and dance number about the Black Plague (complete with dancing Grim Reapers), that's saying something.

But to the play. In 1595 London, the Bottom brothers - wheeler-dealer company leader Nick (Justin Michael Wilcox) and his sensitive scribe of a sib Nigel (Frankie Zabilka) - are furiously trying to make a success of their fledging theater troupe. Their backer is dubious, the creative juices are not flowing, and their competition keeps stealing their ideas and hogging the spotlight. That would be William Shakespeare (Aleks Pevec), an actor from the Bottoms' company who went solo and has become the rock star toast of London. His ROMEO AND JULIET is currently the city's hot ticket; a pretty high bar. Like the Bottoms, an equally hustle-minded Shakespeare is forever in search of his next smash as well.

Faced with a deadline, a desperate Nick tasks the soothsayer Nostradamus (Randy Brenner) to look to the future to predict the next theatrical sensation. Nostradamus's advice: a play combining singing, dancing and acting, i.e. - and cue all those dancers - "A Musical." As Nick scrambles to bring this daffy notion to fruition ("The Black Plague" tryout doesn't go over well with his backer), Nigel finds himself drawn to writing poetry and also to Portia (Bella Gil), the daughter of the play-hating, fire and brimstone spouting Puritan, Brother Jeremiah (Jalon Matthews). Nick's ever-supporting wife Bea (Brittany Anderson), meanwhile, dons a series of male disguises in order to bring in some money. Although she's also a pretty good actor, women, alas, aren't allowed on stage. But with Elizabeth on the throne, Bea foresees women achieving gender parity by 1600.

In addition to crafting a dynamic plot that has a lot going on, composer/lyricists Wayne and Karey Kirkpatrick and fellow book writer John O'Farrell have peppered their stew with inside jokes and one-liners aplenty. Shakespeare's plays are referenced - those already written and those to come along with Broadway musicals galore. Whether frolicking in one of Will Brattain's costumes or embracing a double entendre, Israel's cast leans into all the yuks, no matter how ribald. A few of the company members (Pevec and Gil most notably) are not above bestowing a mugging gape to the audience. In this kind of show, that's permissible.

SOMETHING ROTTEN'S score is as clever as it is hummable. Pevec's tears into the egotistical anthem "Hard to be the Bard" with all the petulance of a diva. Anderson is all can-do pluck with her series of jobs and the song "Right Hand Man. The scene-establishing opener "Welcome to the Renaissance," is a winning ditty delivered with plenty of panache by Mitchell Johnson's Minstrel and the ensemble.

Bookending the musical are a pair of big chorus numbers designed to legitimately bring the house down. With "It's a Musical," Nostradamus looks a few centuries into the future and comes up with snatches of ANNIE, A CHORUS LINE, THE SOUND OF MUSIC, CHICAGO, you name it. Choreographer Elkins has her ensemble tapping, frugging and can-canning away and the laughs are bountiful. The second act number "Make an Omelette" is sort of an unofficial retread of "It's a Musical," only with a certain famous Shakespearean tragedy as its point of reference. Again, the chorus brings it home with reams of finesse.

Of the leading players, Brenner with his Beethoven wig and out of control soul patch and eyebrows has spot-on comic timing as Nostradamus. Wilcox's song and dance skills are as deft as his put-upon everyman charm, making his Nick Bottom a headstrong jerk perhaps, but a lovable one. Anderson's Bea is every bit her husband's match while Gil's Portia warbles sweetly and can milk the laugh out of a lass who lusts over rhyming couplets.

The scene-stealer of SOETHING ROTTEN is usually Shakespeare. Pevec has played the role before. In his hands, our Will is a strutting, preening bundle of neuroses, a man who can not stand the thought of losing the limelight he has chased so hard. Hard to be the Bard? Perhaps. But this guy would have it no other way.

Solid acting, fun music and great tale. All told, 5-Star's SOMETHINIG ROTTEN! is anything but.

Performances are 7:30 p.m. Thursday, 8 p.m. Friday and Saturday, 2 p.m. Saturday and Sunday through Feb. 13. (800) 745-3000, www.5startheatricals.com.

Photo of Aleks Pevec by Veronica Slavin

 

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