Bottoms Up!
With the
end of April, and the announcement of the major award nominations, I hereby
conclude my coverage of the 2014-2015 New York theatre season, which—like
most—was mostly on the lower half of the sliding scale from up to down.
Delightfully, though, SOMETHING ROTTEN!, the last show I saw, was also one of
the most enjoyable, despite a tiny drawback or two. It’s a silly, farcical,
insistently rambunctious, over-the-top, and—as many have pointed out—sophomoric
satire on Shakespeare and theatre (musicals in particular). However, its joyously
exuberant cast plays it with such enthusiastic panache, it’s a wonder their
tongues don’t poke holes in their cheeks. This show’s hard not to adore, even
when you’re shaking your head at its obsession with over-obvious double
entendres and puerile bathroom humor. Part of the fun is congratulating
yourself on catching the Shakespearean and musical references; if you’ve never
brushed up your Shakespeare or can’t tell the difference between A CHORUS LINE
and CATS, maybe you’ll want to visit THE VISIT instead.
It’s cool for
once to see a musical that isn’t based on a movie, book, or biography, making
it impossible to compare to anything but itself; in fact, of all the current
Broadway musicals, only SOMETHING ROTTEN! and IT SHOULDA BEEN YOU fit this
category. Karey Kirkpatrick and John O’Farrell wrote the book, Wayne
Kirkpatrick and his brother Karey Fitzpatrick wrote the music and lyrics, and
Kirk and Wayne conceived the show. Casey Nicholaw, the director-choreographer genius responsible for ALADDIN (direction and choreography) and THE BOOK OF MORMON (co-direction and choreography),
is a large reason for the show’s nonstop fusillade of entertainment.
There's nothing rotten about SOMETHING
ROTTEN!, which throws us into the bear pit (mosh pit?)
of 1590s London, to which we’re introduced with the splashy opening number, “Welcome
to the Renaissance,” featuring energetic ensemble member, Michael James Scott.
Soon enough we’re in a world where Shakespeare (Christian Borle) is the preening,
cocky (in more ways than one), sexy rock star of the theatre world, and where
brothers Nick (Brian d’Arcy James) and Nigel Bottom (John Cariani)—no need to
list the jokes that last name inspires—are struggling playwrights jealous of
the Bard (a word that gets its own well-deserved repartee). When Nick bitches
about Shakespeare, the ensemble responds, “Don’t be a penis. The man’s a
genius.” Nick’s married to the proto-feminist Bea (Heidi Blickenstaff, terrific),
who gets a job carrying buckets of bear shit by dressing as a man, and who
hopes to see women take over from men the playing of women’s roles. Needing to
make some kind of theatrical breakthrough to defeat Shakespeare, Nick seeks out
the soothsayer Nostradamus (Brad Oscar, really hilarious)—no, not that one, but
a distant relative named Thomas Nostradamus.
Nostradamus
foresees that the next big thing in theatre will be musicals, a concept totally
alien to Nick, so the show launches into the show-stopping “A Musical,” a
raucous song and dance lampoon referencing every big musical you’ve ever (or, perhaps, never) seen, from
WEST SIDE STORY to SOUTH PACIFIC to ANNIE to LES MIZ to FOLLIES to SWEET
CHARITY to that show where all the chorus kids hold up their headshots. (Although
surely unintended, the number has a sequence set before a radiating Radio City
Music Hall-type background that looks like it came directly from “I’ll Build a
Stairway to Paradise” in AN AMERICAN IN
PARIS.) “A Musical” comes fairly early, and is so good—the applause never wants
to stop—you wonder how the show will ever top it; actually, despite many
wonderful songs and dances, it never quite does, so the show cleverly reprises
it at the grand finale.
The
specific show Nick’s inspired to write is also a result of Nostradamus’s
prognostications about something brewing in Shakespeare’s brain, but the
soothsayer’s not quite sure about the title. This leads to Nick and Nigel
writing a new musical called “Omelette: the Musical,” and you can imagine what this
leads to (hint: imagine a chorus dressed as eggs). Soon enough Shakespeare,
disguised as an obese actor named Toby Belch from York (Nick calls him “the
new York actor”), joins the company to spy on Nick and Nigel’s show.
Complications pile up, including a romance between Nigel and Portia (the delicious Kate Reinders, a dead ringer for Kristin Chenoweth), the very blonde daughter of Brother Jeremiah (Brooks Ashmanskas), a Puritan who hates the theatre (as all good Puritans did) and who can’t say a word without implying he’s gay; the story of how Shakespeare stole HAMLET from Nigel; the loss of the Bottom brothers’ patron, Lord Clapham (Peter Bartlett, marvelously plummy), when he’s unhappy with their musical about the Black Death; an old Jewish moneylender named Shylock (Gerry Vichi, ethnically amusing) who becomes Nick and Nigel’s backer; a trial scene in which Bea, dressed as a bearded male lawyer, saves the day, and . . . you get the idea.
Complications pile up, including a romance between Nigel and Portia (the delicious Kate Reinders, a dead ringer for Kristin Chenoweth), the very blonde daughter of Brother Jeremiah (Brooks Ashmanskas), a Puritan who hates the theatre (as all good Puritans did) and who can’t say a word without implying he’s gay; the story of how Shakespeare stole HAMLET from Nigel; the loss of the Bottom brothers’ patron, Lord Clapham (Peter Bartlett, marvelously plummy), when he’s unhappy with their musical about the Black Death; an old Jewish moneylender named Shylock (Gerry Vichi, ethnically amusing) who becomes Nick and Nigel’s backer; a trial scene in which Bea, dressed as a bearded male lawyer, saves the day, and . . . you get the idea.
All is
encased in Scott Pask’s very busy set design, redolent with Tudor highlights; it uses
lots and lots of sliding and flying units, but is neither especially novel nor
inventive. Gregg Barnes’s brilliant costumes, though, are visual delights,
combining Elizabethan authenticity with Italian Renaissance touches, including
exaggerated codpieces worn on leather tights by lithe young studs; Shakespeare,
in particular, stands out (yes, that way, too) in his British rock idol persona (down
to the Jaggeresque accent). It makes perfect sense when Mr. Borle’s Shakespeare
gets to sing “It’s Hard to Be the Bard.” Wait a sec. I don’t mean that kind of
hard!
Wonderfully,
despite all the craziness, the music, while not on a par with the genre’s
greats, is excellent enough for the task of hand, most of it up-tempo, but now
and then relaxing into near balladry. It’s almost as if New York’s tired
businessmen united to have a carefree show they could enjoy without undue
cogitation or artiness, which isn’t to say that a variorum of artistry and
artfulness hasn't gone into creating this welcome laugh fest. Even if you don’t
burst out laughing every five seconds, it’ll still be hard to wipe the grin off
your face.
I’ve
always liked Brian d’Arcy James as a straight actor and musical theatre leading
man; any doubts about his comical abilities are dispelled by his riotous
endeavors here, and his tap-dancing chops come as a big surprise. Ditto Christian Borle, hilariously self-involved as Will the quill, and
just about able to do anything required of a musical comedy star. Playing the
least loony of the leads, John Cariani is a perfect foil as the sensitive,
ambitious poet who finds it so difficult to make Nick see that maybe “Omelette”
is a rotten egg.
St. James Theatre
246 West 44th Street, NYC
Open run