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One of the many “original” staging ideas for a musical in Slow Burn Theater Co.’s Something Rotten / Photos by Larry Marano
By Bill Hirschman
In one of the most hilarious production numbers in recent musical comedy written and performed very specifically for fans of musical comedy, imagine this:
The ensemble dressed in lush 17th Century garb alternating lyrics that share Shakespearean quotes with snatches of 21st Century ribald puns, the iconic sights of Annie’s orphans scrubbing the floor and a chorus line holding up A Chorus Line’s resume photos.
At one moment, a character says straight-faced to another, “How do you solve a problem like Ophelia?” And then on to the next line.
And every element careens through the Broward Center at Mach speed with the exuberant energy of performers luxuriating in the knowledge that the audience they are playing for will relish this specific material. The cast is visibly grinning, sending the energy back to the audience.
Because Slow Burn Theatre Co.’s Something Rotten is a celebration of musical theater that will entertain much of its audience, but will enthrall musical theater devotees. Well, to start with, that number is titled “A Musical,” with a verbal exclamation point as if the idea had just become discovered.
That’s one of the keys that made the opening night’s audience ecstatic: The literally hundreds of lightning flash jokes, quips and references are a reaffirmation of memories that they invested in. Their reaction, laughs and applause make them more than usual integral part of the equation.
The 2015 show takes place around 1595 when the wannabe playwrights the Bottom brothers Nick and Nigel (yes, we know, Midsummer Night’s Dream) are trying desperately to pen something to outshine the success of their former company player, Shakespeare.
Their producer backs away from their still-unfinished Richard II, an idea Shakespeare steals, as he does all the time from Nigel’s lines of gorgeous poetry.
Nick, the more practical one, goes to a seer to predict Shakespeare’s next idea. The seer named, wait for it, Nostradamus (no, it’s the famous one’s cousin) has trouble seeing through the haze and then says it’s called “Omelette” and it s about a man who eats Danish. And the brothers are off – Nick to hijack the idea and Nigel to help, but much preferring to write poetry while he dates Portia, the daughter of the town’s leading stiff-necked religious leader.
The arrogant Club 54-worthy butt-shaking-in-leather celebrity Shakespeare rejoins the troupe in disguise to steal their weird idea.
Something Rotten doesn’t go far without yet another production number that would have had the audience close to cheering if they hadn’t had too big a dinner beforehand.
Some of the copious torrent of humor is subtle, some obvious. Some is broad vaudeville, some of it raucous, some is blue such as the lovely couplet about The Bard, “Don’t be a penis / The man is a genius.”
Ryan Crout as Nostradamus predicting the future,. sort of
A puzzle is that we’ve never heard of bookwriters Karey Kirkpatrick and John O’Farrell and composer-lyricists Wayne Kirkpatrick and Kartey Kirpatrick. (Research shows they later wrote the eternal musical Mrs. Doubtfire). But Something Rotten is technically solid with a wide array of musical styles and a Niagara of verbiage with expert arrangements and orchestrations. Although the fullness of the music is courtesy of a fully-realized digital orchestra, cast member Ryan Crout doubled as the music director of the split-second vocalizing.
Director Patrick Fitzwater expertly guides the cast in the deceptively precise comic line readings and rhythms, and ensures that the pace never lags. Nicolette Quintero creates a similarly joyful tribute to every choreographic cliché, homily and trope in the handbook.
The cast is clearly having the time of their careers with the full-throated broad-comedy-is-desired cavalcade. Woodrow Jackson Helms, an Orlando-based actor, is Nick and Tyler Manemeit is Nigel. Both have fine voices and solid timing. They have appeared in other productions of Something Rotten.
But the three you will take home with you are Ryan Crout’s Nostradamus, Leah Sessa as Nick’s loyal wife, and Ralph Meitlzler as the endlessly preening, ego-driven sex symbol Shakespeare.
Crout creates an unhinged soothsayer with limbs seemingly uncontrolled by the rest of his body, his voice announcing the hazy – and often inaccurate – images he sees.
Sessa, who must be blasting out the back walls with the number “Right Hand Man,” is a force of nature smarter than everyone else in the town and pushing hard for the equal rights of women as it is in the 21st Century – well, such being allowed to hold a job. She says while “we have a woman on the throne” she can’t get a job until she dresses up as a man “even though it is the ‘90s.” The 1590s.
Ralph Meitzler
Meitzler has the persona down solid to the point that it pours over the into the house. While Helms is a decent dancer, Meitlzer intentionally blows away him and the rest of assemblage in a blur of rapid-fire tap dancing.
A nod to veteran Slow Burn arsonist Jerel Brown as the act-welcoming tall Minstrel who ignites the opening numbers. Company co-founder Matthew Korinko is fine as Shylock, the Jew willing to produce the abandoned production. Kristi Rose Mills is the lovely Portia, and Michael Dean Morgan is the stuck-up Puritan.
Whether it’s someone declaring matter-of-factly, “I had a dream,” or the sight of a Sound of Music nun singing with a man in a half-mask who stands next to some guy playing a fiddle – it’s all well that ends well.
Note to lovers of drama, comedy and musicals: Somebody must have put something in the drinks of the South Florida theatrical artists community because we have published review after review praising the work of this season. It’s not that our standards have slipped. Far from it. It’s just that this season is quickly establishing itself as one of the, if not the, strongest quality as far as performances in quite some time. Operating budgets aside, I’d put up some of what we’ve seen against anybody’s. Anybody’s. The idea that this is the same company that mounted the transcendent Parade earlier in the season illustrates its depth and breadth.
Note to the Broward Center: Yes, there was more than one show Saturday night, but it took this critic 40 minutes to get out of the parking garage and likely others were stuck in there an hour. May we suggest having a traffic manager inside the garage on each of the upper floors merging the three lanes of escaping patrons. Because some customers are likely vowing not to come back.
Something Rotten from Slow Burn Theater Co. plays through April 13 at the Amaturo Theater at the Broward Center for the Performing Arts, 201 SW 5th Avenue, Fort Lauderdale. Performances 7:30 p.m. Wednesday-Saturday, 2 p.m. Sundays, and 1 p.m. Saturday. Running time opening night was 2 hours 30 minutes, including a 20-minute intermission. Price $72 – $94. Visit https://tinyurl.com/5b94cstv or (954) 323-7884
