Stratford Festival 2024/Something Rotten!, book by John O’Farrell and Karey Kirkpatrick, music and lyrics by Wayne Kirkpatrick and Karey Kirkpatrick, directed and choreographed by Donna Feore, Festival Theatre, closes Nov. 17. Tickets here.
How do you solve a problem like Ophelia?
That’s just one of the hilarious lines from the musical Something Rotten! (2015), Stratford’s runaway hit of the season. As well as being very funny, both in concept and execution, the show is also clever, witty and smart, which makes for a vastly entertaining production. Is it any wonder that Something Rotten! was nominated for ten Tony Awards?
The musical is the brainchild of the multi-talented Kirkpatrick brothers, Wayne and Karey, who, aided by British comic writer/satirist John O’Farrell, have come up with a premise that is absolutely brilliant.
Nick and Nigel Bottom (Mark Uhre and Henry Firmston, respectively) have a struggling acting company. The bane of Nick’s existence is that their plays are always in the shadow of London’s new rockstar, the Bard, aka William Shakespeare (Jeff Lillico). In order to get ahead of Shakespeare and create their own giant hit, Nick uses all their savings to consult a soothsayer, Thomas Nostradamus (Dan Chameroy), the nephew of the famous astrologer and seer.
Nostradamus cites two things in the future. He tells Nick that Shakespeare’s greatest hit will be a play called Omelette, and looking even further ahead, he says that the next big thing will be a musical where actors suddenly stop saying lines, and open their mouths and sing. Thus, to beat the Bard at his own game, Nick and Nigel start creating a musical called Omelette. Absolutely side-splitting are the other predictions that Nostradamus sees in the future — cats on stage, singing nuns, and something called Little Shop of Whores.
There are also a lot of other interesting things going on in the show.
To help solve her family’s money problems, Nick’s resourceful wife Bea (Starr Domingue) goes out to work, taking on jobs that men do, which brings in the feminist trope. The money-lender Shylock (Steve Ross) wants to invest in the Bottoms’ theatre but can’t, because it’s illegal to employ a Jew, which brings up a dark side of the Renaissance. (The play is set in 1595.)
We also meet the hypocritical Puritans and their ultra conservative viewpoint in the form of the repressed Brother Jeremiah (Juan Chioran) and his gentle daughter Portia (Olivia Sinclair-Brisbane), who is Nigel’s star-cross’d love. Lady Clapham (Khadijah Roberts-Abdullah) makes a strong showing as the Bottoms’ demanding patron, illustrating that tortuous relationship.
Both acts open with an early music tribute to the Renaissance, performed delicately by a wandering lute-playing Minstrel (Jeremy Carver-James). The tune could be 400 years old, and the fact that it was written in the 21st century is a tribute to the enormous musicality of the Kirkpatrick brothers.
The songs are all really hummable tunes — no boring, it-all-sounds-the-same soft rock, here. One showstopper number alone is worth the price of admission. In Act One’s “A Musical”, the inspired lyrics define exactly what a musical is in just one song.
As a backdrop to the insightful lyrics, the company performs a dizzying array of tableaux from a parade of musicals. We see quotes from Les Misérables, Annie, Guys and Dolls, South Pacific, The Sound of Music, A Chorus Line, The Lion King, and The Phantom of the Opera, not to mention a nod to Bob Fosse and Jerome Robbins, to name but a few. This could be director/choreographer Donna Feore’s greatest production number in her storied career at Stratford.
The actor/singers are all first rate, particularly Uhre, who carries the show. Firmston’s sweet, poetic Nigel is a wonderful contrast to Uhre’s fierce energy and bombast. Mention should also be made of Chameroy’s hilarious riff on Boris Karloff in his portrayal of Nostradamus, and Lillico in black leather channelling Mick Jagger for Shakespeare.
Add in spoofs of Shakespeare’s canon, all manner of irreverent jokes, low brow gags, references to modern day happenings like Shakespeare in the Park, all layered with Feore’s rambunctious, even furious choreography, as well as conductor Laura Burton’s lively musical direction, and the result is a show that is wildly infectious in its presentation of good fun. Michael Gianfrancesco’s period sets and costumes look wonderful.
Truth be told, the show’s second act is not as strong as the first, but who cares. I know people who have now seen Something Rotten! for a second and third time. That’s how really splendid this production is.
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