Review: FEAR is a Love Sonnet to Shakespeare at The Callan Theatre

"What excites you about Shakespeare?"

In Longacre Lea's world premiere production of Fear, a comedy written and directed by Kathleen Akerley, this question is asked by one of the members of the cast of 38th Pie, a theatre company, that is tackling something that they have never done before - a Shakespearean play. What propels a theatre company focused on the modern plays to go for Shakespeare? Well, an underwriter in the form of Penelope (Amal Saade), a software developer, decides that 38th Pie needs to do Shakespeare. 38th Pie's artistic director Timothy (Seamus Miller) is sold on Penelope's idea. He calls on for help from his fellow actors including JT (Ashley DeMain), Van (Michael Glenn), Aidan (MATTHEW ALAN Ward), Lissa (Jennifer J. Hopkins), Nick (Vince Eisenson), and Henry (Tom Carman) to come up with proposals. This ultimately leads the company members having to compete against each other, but at the same time - it provokes conversations among themselves about Shakespeare and meanings of works, Macbeth and Hamlet.

Fear is "a play within a play," which is often overdone, but Longacre Lea takes it to the next level and makes it its own. Each actor in Fear plays their main real world character on top of multiple characters from Hamlet and Macbeth. Juggling multiple characters for any actor is a difficult task, but Longacre Lea's cast in Fear are able to do so with ease. They are able to play actors with depth and meaning rather than playing them stereotypically. This all-in-all adds to the realism of the production. Act I is a full of in-depth and fascinating discussions about hot topics surrounding Shakespeare, such as copyright and sexism. During these discussions, the cast of Fear makes one feel as if one is in an abbreviated Shakespeare class learning about various topics of the professor or professors choosing.

Fear indulges newbies and long time Shakespeare fans with scenes from Macbeth and Hamlet, but there is also another element that shapes the foundation of Fear - theatre. Theatre as a central topic within this show. There are some terms, such as catharsis, that may leave an audience member without knowledge of theatre or without theatre experiences wondering what the actors on stage are talking about. Act II gives the audience a taste of the Shakespeare acts with modern twists including a female Hamlet, an inverted Hamlet duel, and an avant-garde take on Hamlet). The cast of Fear nails the Shakespearean language and they are able to channel the meaning of their lines through their physical movements, as well as, delivery of lines.

While Fear does focus a lot on Shakespeare and theatre, which can be serious topics, there is a highlighted humor throughout the production. Witty and snappy jokes are essential to balance the often times intensive subject material of Hamlet and Macbeth. The perhaps most hilarious scenes include Van's proposal to combine a Shakespearean play with Dune and the avant-garde take on Hamlet focused on a quite vicious mole.

Comedy. Shakespeare. Theatre. Fear is it all and then some.

Longacre Lea's production of Fear runs until September 4th, 2016. The production runs at about 2 hours and 45 minutes with one intermission. Tickets can be purchased online.

Photo caption and credit: (left to right) Jennifer J. Hopkins, Tom Carman, and Vince Eisenson in Longacre Lea's production of Fear. Photo by Kathleen Akerley.

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