|
 The play that opened at London's Noel Coward theater on
Wednesday night, backed by Disney and leading British producer
Sonia Freedman, inevitably lacks the star power of Joseph
Fiennes as Shakespeare, Gwyneth Paltrow - who won an Oscar for
best actress - as Viola de Lesseps and Judi Dench as Queen
Elizabeth I.
But Tom Bateman as Shakespeare and Lucy Briggs-Owen as Viola
bring an engaging and youthful energy to a script adopted from
the screenplay by Stoppard and co-writer Marc Norman. Like the
film, the play superimposes highlights from "Romeo and Juliet"
over the story of penniless Will and the heiress Viola, their
affair doomed by England's class system.
It is acted out on a wooden stage upon a stage, meant to be the
Rose Theater in London, summer of 1593, with a huge cast of 28.
The hardworking crew plays everyone from actors, innkeepers, an
irate play investor who wants his money back and the
theater-loving Queen Elizabeth I to officers of the crown, a
nurse and a band of musicians, including a high-pitched
countertenor and instrumentalists who can perform a smashing
Irish jig.
In case you loved the movie and feared that the stage show,
directed by the inventive Declan Donnellan, might have left out
one of its best running gags, there is a dog.
Also retained is the memorable line when the stage-struck virgin
Viola, who has met her idol Shakespeare by posing as a man and
obtaining the male lead in "Romeo and Juliet", reveals who she
is. They make love, after which she sighs: "I would not have
thought it: there IS something better than a play."
STOPPARD ABANDONED
Stoppard had attempted a stage adaptation but abandoned it years
ago. The credit for this one goes to Lee Hall, who won a Tony
award for his long-running stage version of "Billy Elliot the
Musical."
[to top of second column] |
While the movie focuses on the love affair, Hall has placed greater
emphasis on how young Will became a great playwright and poet. The
opening scene has the company of players and hangers-on gathered
around a desk where Shakespeare is having trouble finishing the line
"Shall I compare thee to ... "
Christopher "Kit" Marlowe, played by David Oakes as a cynical,
knowing rival, offers the struggling Will the missing "a summer's
day" - bolstering the theory that Shakespeare could not have written
everything attributed to him.
It is not long, though, before Shakespeare, head over heels in love
with Viola, overcomes his writer's block, finds his inner voice and
is tossing off page after page of peerless playwriting. At the end,
the crowd from the opening hangs on every word Shakespeare writes -
and he dashes them off.
Act Two departs more from the film than the first act but in a way
that surely no one could fault, by inserting more from the closing
scenes from "Romeo and Juliet" - the Bard's own words.
At the same time, much of the wonderful banter from the movie having
to do with theater lore and chicanery is preserved.
Rose owner Philip Henslowe, struggling to avoid paying with his life
for his debt to Hugh Fennyman, says he is penniless because in the
theater business "the natural condition is one of insurmountable
obstacles on the road to imminent disaster".
"So what do we do?," Fennyman asks to which Henslowe responds:
"Nothing. Strangely enough, it all turns out well."
It will be no mystery at all if the imprimatur of Disney, with its
record of film-to-stage hits like "The Lion King", means
"Shakespeare" will soon be bound for Broadway.
(Writing by Michael Roddy; Editing by Larry King)
[© 2014 Thomson Reuters. All rights
reserved.] Copyright 2014 Reuters. All rights reserved. This material may not be published,
broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
|
