DANE OF THRONES

All systems are 'go' in Hamlet, the centerpiece production of this year's Santa Cruz Shakespeare season. The acting is impressive at every level, and the action trots along with clarity, focus and feeling. Director Susan Dalian updates the famous tale of political murder, moral corruption, and generational angst into the post-assassination JFK/Mad Men era, which makes enough sense to complement, not distract from the drama.

To recap: The King of Denmark has died suddenly, and his brother, Claudius, has assumed the king's throne and married the king's wife, Queen Gertrude. The royal son, Prince Hamlet, home from school abroad for his father's funeral, is already shocked by his mother's hasty marriage to his uncle when the ghost of his father tells Hamlet he was murdered by Claudius and demands vengeance. 

Much of the play revolves around Hamlet's soul-searching, as he grapples with grief and rage: must he avenge his father's murder? What happens if he does? Can he live with himself if he does not? Is life worth living at all? Meanwhile, he pretends to be mad, spouting wordplay and foolery, hoping to throw the plotters off-guard and learn the truth about his father's death — and decide what to do about it. 

As Hamlet, incoming SCS Artistic Director Charles Pasternak makes a grand, rampaging feast of the part. Roaring in outrage, heartfelt in despair, he can shift in an instant into nimble verbal dancing and witty asides, baiting the pompous and the less intellectually adroit. It's a Herculean, often riveting  performance that never quite loses its grounding in life-sized human emotion. 

Mike Ryan plays the treacherous Claudius with glib, glad-handing duplicity. As Gertrude, Marion Adler seems hopefully pragmatic at first, trying to restore peace to her recently disrupted court, but gradually descends into aching remorse the "crazier" and more reproachful her son becomes. There's more collateral damage in Ophelia, Hamlet's paramour, daughter of the king's counselor, Polonius. Allie Pratt plays her as a fragile, innocent flower child driven genuinely out of her mind by Hamlet's pretended lunacy. 

By far the most arresting supporting character in this production in Polonius, gender-switched from a befuddled, cliche-spouting, out-of-touch doddering father, as the role is usually played, into a socially scheming mother. The remarkable Paige Lindsey White gives us an interfering mother of dynamic, aggressive cluelessness, eager to enforce the romantic and social protocols of her own bygone era, and thus prove worthy to meddle in the schemes of her royal in-laws-to-be. White's Polonius is a vividly entertaining comic figure, right up to the moment she's undone by her own hubris, daring to believe (mistakenly, as it turns out) that she's sly enough to match wits with the pros in ruthless court politics. 

Jono Eiland and Elliot Sagay are pleasantly accommodating as Rosencrantz and Guildenstern (not necessarily in that order, although no one is ever quite sure), Hamlet's school friends recruited by Claudius to spy on his antagonistic step-son. Charlotte Munson is effective as Horatio, Hamlet's confidant, and the play's moral and rational center, and the ever exuberant Patty Gallagher pops up as the Player King, head of a troupe of actors hired by Hamlet to stage an incendiary drama about regicide. Raphael Nash Thompson brings his sonorous voice and formidable presence to the vengeful Ghost. 

Austin Blake Conlee's costumes run toward relaxed mens' suits and chic linen dress ensembles in popsicle pastel colors, accompanied by wigmistress Jessica Carter's extravagant mid-60s bouffants. Luke Shepherd's smart, subtle, insinuating sound design enhances the action at every turn. 

This is the fourth production of Hamlet mounted by the company since its original inception as Shakespeare Santa Cruz in 1981. The first production of the play, way back in 1985, starred a young Brit recently imported from the Royal Shakespeare Company, Paul Whitworth, in the title role. 

Incidental characters Rosencrantz and Guildenstern were played by Danny Scheie and Jack Zerbe, who also got to star in a concurrent production of Tom Stoppard's hilarious existential comedy, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, which played on alternate nights with Hamlet throughout the season. 

This was momentous casting for the company, since both Scheie and then Whitworth would go on to serve tenures as Artistic Director. 

Me, I loved both productions so much, I channeled my inner Al Hirschfield and drew this cartoon, commemorating the season! 

 

Hamlet plays in repertoire through August 31st in the Audrey Stanley Grove at Delaveaga Park.

INTO THE WOODS

Courtly Cousins: Munson and Takayo

SCS launches season with lively rustic comedy As You Like It

Art imitated life in Santa Cruz this weekend — or was it the other way around?

Santa Cruz Shakespeare launched it's 43rd(!) season under the theme Generations, in honor of former Artistic Director Mike Ryan handing over the festival reins to new Artistic Director Charles Pasternak. Within the same 48 hours, President Joe Biden announced he would not seek re-election, "passing the torch" to Vice President Kamala Harris in the upcoming November election. As Pasternak writes in his program notes, this season "looks forward to the young inheriting the world."

As always, 400+ years later, Shakespeare's stories are as timely as ever!

The first production in this year's play cycle, Shakespeare's pastoral comedy As You Like It, is not about the transfer of political power, but rather the efforts of a younger generation to escape the dysfunctional family values of the past, reinvent themselves, and go boldly into the future.

The story turns on two sets of brothers in conflict. Conniving Duke Frederick has usurped the office of his benevolent brother, Duke Senior, who has fled with his loyal followers into the Forest of Arden, a wild, unspoiled refuge far from the rules and intrigues of the ducal court. Frederick's henchman, Oliver, a firstborn son, has inherited his nobleman father's title and lands, but refuses to provide for his younger brother, Orlando, leaving him to make his own way in the world without station, means, or recourse.

Although Senior is banished, his daughter, Rosalind, still lives at the palace with her beloved cousin, Celia, daughter of Frederick— until he banishes her, too. Disguising herself as a man, Rosalind flees into the forest with Celia, who dresses as a plain country lass. Pretty soon, Orlando also arrives in the forest to escape his murderous brother's wrath, and the stage is set for both a romantic comedy of dueling wits and the low comedy of courtly vs. country manners.

Sir Duke: Thompson as genial Duke Senior

Indeed, director Carey Perloff sets the action quite literally on a stage, or rather, the backstage area of a theater, amid stacks of prop boxes, rolling dress forms, and racks of costumes. It's ironic enough to construct a theatrical backstage to stand in for the Forest of Arden in the middle of an actual eucalyptus grove. But Perloff states she was inspired by the play's famous "All the world's a stage" speech to conceive of the forest as a kind of (literal) green room where the characters, like actors, try on various disguises and deceptions, and engage in philosophical and romantic banter while grooming themselves to return to the "real world" of court life.

But this thoughtful concept doesn't feel especially organic to the play, or justify why such a decidedly rustic story seems to be taking place indoors, particularly if one hasn't read Perloff's notes. She might have had more fun pushing the concept further with the actors obviously putting on a show for us as they work through the play's themes, slipping in and out of character and costumes in view of the audience, highlighting the idea that "all the men and women (are) merely players."

That said, the production skips along at a lively pace, buoyed up by its engaging cast. As Orlando, meeting Rosalind for the first time (they fall instantly in love, of course), Elliot Sagay is absolutely priceless in his inability to squeeze out one single word. Charlotte Munson delivers Rosalind's lines with bright, vivid clarity; when they encounter each other later in the forest, and Rosalind, in disguise, coaches Orlando how to woo, she seems amazed and delighted as each witty rejoinder pops into her head.

Forest Foolery: Tagatac, Rose, Gallagher, Sagay

Anna Takayo is fresh and charming as loyal Celia. The irrepressible Patty Gallagher exercises her gifts as both a physical clown and flinger of bawdy wit as the court fool, Touchstone, going native in the country to court lusty shepherdess Audrey (Jomar Tagatac). Paige Lindsey White is quietly compelling as "the melancholy Jacques," whose philosophical observations create a subtext of wistful reflection alongside the comedy.

The diminutive Chelsea Rose makes a big impression as feisty shepherdess Phoebe, who falls for the boy she believes Rosalind is while being pursued by Justin Juong's sweetly hapless shepherd, Silvius. As both rival dukes, the excellent Raphael Nash Thompson switches gears between the clipped, menacing severity of Frederick and the genial effusiveness of Senior. And Pasternak's Oliver, all bristling spite in the early scenes, makes a nifty transition into a reformed, good-hearted mensch by the last act.

Musical composer David Coulter sets Shakespeare's songs to glide in and out of the action, then wallops us with a showstopper of "What shall he have that kill'd the deer?" as an eerily aggressive rhythmic chant. Coulter also appears throughout in a little cubbyhole onstage, providing incidental music and sound effects.

Love, laughs, action and music — as the title suggests, As You Like It has something for everyone!


As You Like It plays in repertoire through September 1st in the Audrey Stanley Grove at Delaveaga Park.

WORD PLAY

 SCS stages smart, witty story of the actors who saved Shakespeare

You couldn't imagine a better production to capture the spirit of this pivotal Santa Cruz Shakespeare season than The Book of Will. Lauren Gunderson's contemporary play about the creation of the First Folio of Shakespeare's texts is all about the power of words — to inspire and excite, to celebrate and educate, to comfort and heal. And it provides the perfect vehicle for outgoing Artistic Director Mike Ryan to hand over the company reins to incoming AD Charles Pasternak, playing the two real-life actors whose persistence, against all odds, preserved Shakespeare's splendid words for all time.

Ryan and Pasternak play John Heminge and Henry Condell, two Elizabethan actors, friends and colleagues of the recently deceased Will, who hatch a scheme to collect and transcribe all the scribbled-down versions of Shakespeare's play texts they can find to produce a single, official volume of his work in print. This is no easy task. Complete playscripts were rare in this era; normally, actors only copied out their own parts to learn, partly to save on time and the expense of materials like parchment and ink, and partly to prevent other companies from stealing a complete script and producing their own versions. Not that it worked very well, as companies who only had a few scenes of a play to work with cheerfully made up the rest.
 

This point is made painfully clear in the very first scene as a young actor from a rival company (Mariana Garzon Toro) energetically murders Hamlet's "To be or not to be" speech with some random improvised filler. Heminge and Condell, of the King's Men theatrical troupe, and celebrated actor Richard Burbage (played with bombastic verve by Rex Young) gather in a tavern run by Heminge's daughter, Alice (winsome and spirited Allie Pratt) to bemoan the evident deterioration of Shakespeare's plays in performance some seven years after the author's death. Some ardent players like Burbage have memorized entire plays as written, but their generation is aging out, to be replaced by their less-well-schooled heirs.

It's Condell who first proposes the crack-brained idea of collecting Will's plays into a single volume, in his own authentic words — while people still remember what they are. Heminge, who has also become the troupe's business manager, is more tentative, cost-wise. But the enthusiasm of not only Condell and Alice, but Condell's amiable wife, Elizabeth (Paige Lindsey White) and Heminge's own wry, stout-hearted wife, Rebecca (Amy Kim Waschke) convince him of the urgency of preserving Will's thrilling words.

It all comes home to Heminge in a deeply moving late-inning monologue about the power of words to express the inexpressible and give vent to the otherwise unbearable burden of heartbreak.

The supporting cast is terrific, as usual. Young doubles in the role of the publisher, Jaggard, who's been blithely profiting off  the sale of bastardized version of Shakespeare's plays. Ben Jonson (a suitably flamboyant David Kelly), Shakespeare's friend and rival, makes a guest appearance.

Director Laura Gordon is also an actor (she was Prospero in last season's The Tempest),  and her staging makes the most of all the comedy and dry wit, as well as the more subtle, poignant moments in the plot. And for us grumpy traditionalists who pine to see Shakespeare performed in Elizabethan-style dress once in awhile, B. Modern's costumes evoke the period while retaining an unfussy, lived-in aesthetic.

Believe it or not, this is the 10th anniversary of Santa Cruz Shakespeare (emerging phoenix-like from the ashes of the well-beloved Shakespeare Santa Cruz), and the company's 8th season in the lovely Audrey Stanley Grove up in Delaveaga Park. We have Mike Ryan to thank for shepherding the company through these most tumultuous times to bounce back stronger than ever, even now, when the pandemic and its ongoing aftermath continues to wreak havoc in the arts. With Charles Pasternak at the helm (who acted as co-Artistic Director with Ryan this season, before stepping into the job full time next year), we can expect the festival to continue to build on its impressive past while eagerly embracing the future.

Top photo: Kevin Lohman

Above: R. R. Jones

KING of FOOLS

Shakespeare season is now in full swing in Santa Cruz, with the premiere of King Lear last week joining The Taming of the Shrew and The Book Of Will in repertory at Santa Cruz Shakespeare (through August 27).

This is a milestone season for the entity formerly known as Shakespeare Santa Cruz, celebrating ten years since it re-emerged, phoenix-like, in the Audrey Stanley Grove at DeLaveaga Park, under the stewardship of Artistic Director Mike Ryan. It's also a milestone production of Lear. As the rampaging old king driven mad by his duplicitous, ungrateful daughters, longtime SSC Artistic Director Paul Whitworth is making his debut on the Grove stage. It's interesting to note that way back in 1995, when the company was still Shakespeare Santa Cruz, it mounted a production of Lear with Whitworth in the small but plummy featured role of the king's Fool. So it's fascinating to see how Whitworth has aged into the role of Lear in real time, almost 30 years later.

Whitworth brings his entire range of vocal acrobatics to the part; he's particularly effective in the first act, shamelessly wheedling empty flattery out of his two eldest, false-hearted daughters, and in the mad scene in the second half, his wits flown, barefoot, dragging around a few meagre possessions in a cart, vocally caressing each antic observation.

In this production, the philosophical young Fool banished from court with the mad old king is played with tremulous wit and tenderness by Sofia K. Metcalf. In a parallel story of parental foolishness, the Duke of Gloucester's scheming bastard son, Edmund, convinces him that his legitimate son, Edgar, is plotting to kill him, so Edgar flees into the wild with a price on his head, disguising himself as raggedy madman Tom O'Bedlam. Junior Nyong'o is terrific as Edgar/Tom, his madcap exuberance layered over a foundation of aching nobility. 

 

Metcalf, Nyong'o, Whitworth, Gallagher: heart and soul

 

The ever-reliable Patty Gallagher pops up as Kent, the loyal courtier who disguises herself as a rustic to tend to Lear in his wandering exile. This quartet of the keenly observant Fool, the king sliding into madness, the pretend lunatic, and the stubbornly sensible shepherd of this mismatched flock is the heart and soul of this production. Derrick Lee Weeden deserves honorable mention not only for his formidable presence and pathos as the duped and repentant Gloucester, but for having the most majestic and commanding voice in the Grove.

Unbeknownst to me at the time, I attended the first pre-premiere performance of Lear at a 2pm matinee, which I do not recommend. The production was not lacking in luster, quality or intensity, but if ever a Shakespearean play needed to be staged and seen at night, it's Lear, with its raging midnight storm mirroring the imploding disintegration of the old king's wits at the betrayal of his daughters and his own foolishness.

Watching it in full, simmering sunshine is an entirely different experience — especially when the characters onstage complain about the bitter cold. Yes, awnings erected at the Grove for matinees provide intermittent shade for the audience as the sun moves, but the shifting sun and absence of stage lighting for daylight performances leaves some key scenes to play out in shadow onstage that would likely be spotlighted in the dark of night.

Still, even if I wasn't getting the optimum viewing experience, most of the upcoming performances of King Lear are at night, where dark and possible fog and chill will complement the action onstage. While audiences are unlikely to experience an actual thunderstorm in the Grove in August (although the way the weather has been acting out this year, who knows?), this production generates its own atmospheric river of dramatic turbulence.

Photos by RR Jones
 

ROUSING CLOSER

Desire, power, sex converge in frisky, seductive Venus In Fur

The final mainstage offering from Santa Cruz Shakespeare concludes the season with a bang — and a crash and a boom. Outstanding thunder and lightning effects punctuate the action in Venus In Fur, an often scorchingly funny contemporary drama written by David Ives.

It's a rousing closer to a season that has trained its sights on the politics of desire, gender, and power in many diverse, unruly forms.

Playwright Ives will be familiar to SCS audiences as the author of The Liar, adapted from a 17th Century French farce. The SCS production of The Liar (back when it was still called Shakespeare Santa Cruz) was one of the most uproarious in the company's history.

Gonzalez and Ibsen: who's auditioning whom?

In addition to his own original plays, Ives' specialty is adapting the work of comic authors of previous centuries, like Moliere and Mark Twain.
   
But  Venus In Fur is something completely different. This time, Ives' source material is an 1870 novella by Austrian literary figure Leopold von Sacher-Masoch (the man who put the "M" in S&M). And instead of simply adapting Masoch's story for the stage, Ives whips up (sorry), a clever bracketing device about a frazzled theatrical director (Brian Ibsen) and a ditzy actress late for an audition (the riotously entertaining Maria Gabriela Rosado Gonzalez) reading through a modern play based on the Masoch story — and confronting all the sexual/political issues it raises.

Directed with sharp-witted aplomb by Raelle Myrick-Hodges, it's a seductive chamber piece for two actors and four voices as the actress and director go in and out of character, the lines between reality and fantasy blur, and simmering, centuries-old tensions between the sexes bubble to the surface.
(Read more)

SHAKESPEREAN RHAPSODY

From The Shakespeare Oracle Tarot deck

In Runaways, my unpublished sequel to The Witch From the Sea, my hero, Jack, a Georgian-era actor-turned-pirate, rhapsodizes about William Shakespeare:

"Everything you could ever think or feel or want, Shakespeare has already written about it. And everything that happens in your own life affects how you to respond to him, so his words always seem new and fresh, however often you play them."

Or hear them.

I put these words in Jack's mouth because I believe the reason Shakespeare's work continues to be performed and to stir audiences over 400 hundred years later is not only due to his timeless themes and elegant poetry.

It's mostly because of his keen sensitivity to the quicksilver fluctuations of human nature and his incisive ways of expressing it.

So it doesn't matter how many versions of a particular Shakespeare play you've seen, its effect on you is different every time, depending on what's going on in your own life.

The Zefferelli version: lush

Case in point: the opening Santa Cruz Shakespeare's handsome new production of Romeo and Juliet last week. Who knows how many times I've seen this play?

There was the lush Franco Zefferelli movie (seen when I was an impressionable 16-year-old — which is two years older than Juliet is in the play), the gorgeous full-length production staged by the San Francisco Ballet back in the '80s, and, I believe, two (possibly three) previous productions at Santa Cruz Shakespeare (the entity previously known as Shakespeare Santa Cruz).

(But what's in a name?)

The point is, no matter how familiar I thought I was with the play, I was not prepared for my own reaction at the finale, this time around. (Spoiler Alert: don't expect a happy ending.) Typically, one mourns the tragedy of the young lovers' wasted lives as they  choose suicide, one after the other, when each believes the other is dead.

Romeo and Mercutio: fervor and fury

But recent upheavals in my own life have altered my perspective. This time, when Juliet awakens from her sleeping potion, finds Romeo's lifeless corpse stretched across her bier, and seizes his dagger, I found myself sort of cheering her on.

Not because I wanted to see the poor girl dead, but because it seemed like the only logical solution, faced with the enormity of her loss. This way, at least, it flashed through my mind, they are together.

Shakespeare is always interactive — what you get out of it depends on what you bring to it!

Particular virtues of the current SCS production include an exuberantly acrobatic Romeo (Taha Mandviwala), the giddy poise of Isabel Pask's Juliet, and a fierce, female Tybalt (Maggie Adams McDowell), Juliet's hot-headed cousin. In the showpiece role of Mercutio, Lorenzo Roberts may have been overly encouraged to ham up the physical clowning, but he also conveys every potent syllable of Mercutio's dark, dry wit with fervor and fury.

Random festival-goers, 2017!

Mike Ryan brings both playfulness and moral authority to the role of Friar Lawrence. And director Laura Gordon concludes the first half on a lovely, visual grace note, and opens the second half with a sharply choreographed and dynamic street brawl. The action is swift and engrossing.

I was especially interested in seeing this play again after recently reading the novel The Master of Verona, by David Blixt, sort of a prequel to events leading up to Shakespeare's tale. Another novel I loved, Queen Mab, envisions a romance between Mercutio and the fairy queen he describes with such lively intensity in his first speech in the play.

That's the thing with Shakespeare — he's always ripe for reinterpretation!

PS: There's a new innovation at Santa Cruz Shakespeare this season: shelves are now installed along the back of each row of bleachers so the people sitting the next row back have a place to put their stuff. It's a revelation! James would've loved this device when we went to SCS last summer — we would have had a place to set down those champagne glasses between sips!

DREAM LOGIC

Stage trees vs. the real thing

Stark, but fun Dream launches new SCS space

It's fitting that Santa Cruz Shakespeare chooses A Midsummer Night's Dream as the inaugural production for its spanking new venue at DeLaveaga Park. That they even got the stage erected in time for opening day is no less a feat of magic than anything devised by Puck and his fleet of fairies.

The set and costumes may be minimalist, but a wonderful cast performing Shakespeare's beloved comedy, and a sense of adventure on both sides of the stage, keep patrons engaged.

First the facts: the Festival Glen at UCSC is no more, at least as a performance space for this company. Ousted by the university (which retained the original name, Shakespeare Santa Cruz), the company has risen phoenix-like, rebranded itself as Santa Cruz Shakespeare, and found a new home in DeLaveaga Park.

City Council approval to build the new space was granted in February of this year, meaning SCS has had a scant five months to complete construction.

Addison + Ellis: love potion goes awry

The stage nestles in a grove of pine and eucalyptus, with an open space for picnicking in front of tiered rows of permanent benches and chairs. Sightlines are good, and the box office, restrooms, and parking lot are all immediately adjacent to the performance space (so you no longer need hiking boots and GPS to navigate to the stage area). Named in honor of the company's intrepid co-founder, and tireless supporter, the space is called Audrey Stanley Grove.

Director Terri McMahon's production begins with youthful fairies in baby blue dragging pillows onstage and falling asleep, as the four plots kick in. An extravagant wedding ceremony is about to be held for Duke Theseus of Athens (Cody Nickell) and the Amazon Queen Hippolyta (Mia Ellis).

But first, a noblewoman complains to the Duke that her daughter, Hermia (Katherine Ko — appropriately little and fierce, also funny), refuses to marry the suitor her mom has picked out for her, Demetrius (Brian Smolin, so hilarious in last season's The Liar), Demetrius was formerly engaged to Helena (Mary Cavett), who still pines for him.

But Hermia loves Lysander (Kyle Hester), so that night, they run away—followed by Demetrius, who is followed by Helena. All are soon lost in the forest, where Oberon and Titania, the King and Queen of the fairies, (also played by the commanding Nickell, and the warm, regal Ellis) are having a tiff.

Meanwhile, some tradesmen of the town, are rehearsing a play to perform for the Duke's nuptials. Most enthusiastic of her crew is Nick Bottom, all too eager to take on every part in their show, played with endearing comic bombast by Bernard K. Addison. When a fairy love potion goes awry, the fairy queen falls in love with Bottom, who has acquired the head (and other characteristics) of an ass.

All's well that ends well: lovers correctly matched at last

Christina Dinkel's costumes are simple and effective. (It's funny that she dresses Obron's fairy sidekick Puck (Larry Paulsen) like Smee in Peter Pan, with piratical striped stockings and headscarf.)

Collette Pollard's smart, stark forest set features towers of metal bars, through which we see the actual trees beyond, while the random chairs they sprout are used as fairy perches, or piled up to make thrones.

It may not be as ornate as some versions of Dream, but the  cleverness of this minimalist production makes us eager to see what SCS does next. (Read more)

AT WORDSPOINT

Onwumere and Smolin: lie coach

If you're one of those slightly benighted folks who think Santa Cruz Shakespeare would be so much fun, except for, you know, all that Shakespeare, then the current SCS production of The Liar is for you.

On the other hand, if you can't get enough of Shakespearean-style wit and wordplay, then The Liar is for you. In fact, if you're breathing, The Liar is for you.

Yes, it's a play you've never heard of, based on a French farce from (eek) 1643. Yes, the entire play is in verse. But this outrageously clever 2010 update by American playwright David Ives uses modern idioms and vernacular throughout (references to Twitter, etc.), to make sure that everyone gets all the jokes.

The farcical plot revolves around Dorante (Brian Smolin), a young man from the provinces on his first day in Paris who's quick to embroider the truth for the sake of expedience. He has no malicious intent; rather, say, he can't be bothered with the boring (or inconvenient) truth when a good lie, ingeniously crafted on the spot, is so much more satisfying.

Or, as Dorante puts it, in one of Ives' slyest lines, "the unimagined life is not worth living!"

Jolene and Cavett, with Smolin: effortlessly fun

 In short order, Dorante hires a manservant, Cliton (Toby Onwumere), unable to speak anything but the truth, falls instantly in love with one of two ladies (but mixes up their names), weasels out of a marriage plot arranged by his father, and fights a hilarious duel of words (which he narrates like an ESPN play-by-play), swords undrawn.

Did I mention the twin serving wenches (one lusty, one pious)? As soon as Dorante boasts to Cliton about his "Memory—keystone of the master liar!" you know he's heading for trouble.

A show that depends so completely on verbal dexterity needs an adroit cast, and SCS has put together an exceptional one. Toby Onwumere gets things off to a rollicking start before the show begins, as Cliton, wandering through the audience with a "Man for Hire" sign, offering to juggle fruit, sing songs or recite for pay. Onwumere is so powerful as the tragic but fierce Macduff in this season's production of Macbeth, it's great to see him shift gears in such a boisterously comic role.

Brian Smolin's Dorante is an utterly charming scapegrace, delighting himself (and us) with his extravagant fabrications, soaring to ever new heights on the addictive helium of his own tall tales. Smolin delivers his lines with clarity, precision, and impish glee, to match the flamboyant grace with which he prowls the stage; he's effortlessly fun in a demanding role.

Smolin and Parret: must be the lusty twin

The ladies, sassy Clarice (Mary Cavett) and quiet, but smoldering Lucrece (Sierra Jolene), keep the action hopping along, putting their suitors through their paces. Darek Riley scores as Alcippe, Clarice's other suitor (and Dorante's dueling/sparring partner in that great, er, wordfight scene). Allen Darby makes a droll impression as his friend, Philiste, and Kurt Meeker is the imposing voice of authority as Dorante's father.

Melina Parret is terrific fun as both twin servants, Isabelle and Sabine. SCS audiences may (or may not) recognize her from her other role this season as Lady Macbeth.

David Mickeklsen's vivid costumes vaguely recall the Musketeer era of the original French play (with a few cartoony/Commedia del'Arte flourishes), and Art Manke's smart direction is frisky, but never so frantic that we can't appreciate the jokes or the splendid performances.

This is probably the funniest play I've seen in the Glen since Danny Scheie's original production of A Comedy of Errors, back in the Stone Age. It's what live theatre is all about, and it only plays four more times through August 29, so get your tickets now.

Why are you still sitting there?

LET'S GET WICKED

Something wicked this way comes to Santa Cruz Shakespeare this summer. And if you know your Bardic quotes, that means that Macbeth will be one of SCS's featured productions. Since rising, phoenix-like, from the ashes of the entity formerly known as Shakespeare Santa Cruz for its first forward-funded season in 2014, SCS continues to soar with an ambitious four-play program for 2015. (Which is already one more play than last season.)

Full of blood, murder, and intrigue, not to mention witches and ghosts, Macbeth is always a crowd-pleaser—especially staged at night in the spooky Sinsheimer-Stanley Festival Glen. The dark maneuverings of "The Scottish Play"will be balanced out by one of Shakespeare's wittiest, sprightliest romantic comedies, Much Ado About Nothing.

Also on tap is The Liar, David Ives' modern adaptation of a 17th Century farce by Pierre Corneille, in which a young man torn between two lovers embroils himself in ever more Pinnochio-length deceptions. And continuing in the spirit of antic male-female relationships, this year's Fringe Show will be The Rover, a Restoration comedy by Aphra Behn, one of the first English women writers to earn her living by her pen, famed in her day, as now, for her frank observations of sexual politics.

Gender-bent Hamlet, 1899

Gender equality is also much on the mind of Artistic Director Mike Ryan, who, according to a press release, "aims to fill at least half of all roles with women" this season. In the famously comic and romantic battle of the sexes at the heart of Much Ado, one assumes that Beatrice and Benedick will be played by gender-appropriate actors.

 But in the interest of inclusiveness, Ryan has announced that the role of Leonato, the patriarch and father who opens his home to the returning soldiers, will be re-cast as a woman, matriarch Leonata. Which ought to deepen the comedy (or at least the "ado") even further,  with a household of women juxtaposed against the military men.

This isn't some random attention-getting device, either. There's a long tradition of slippery gender identity in the plays of Shakespeare, dating back to his own era, when women were forbidden to act onstage and female roles had to be played by boys and young men. It wasn't until the Restoration era of Charles II that female actresses were grudgingly allowed to play female parts on the boards.

(For a wonderful overview of the complications arising from this transitional period, I highly recommend Stage Beauty, a sly and marvelous film about love, passion, gender identity and sexual confusion on the Restoration stage. Netflix it today!)

At the turn of the last century, the legendary stage actress Sarah Bernhardt was acclaimed for her interpretation of Hamlet. More recently, Julie Taymor's The Tempest featured Helen Mirren as a female Prospero ("Prospera")—giving extra texture to the idea of a noble skilled in herbs and magic banished from her homeland for "witchcraft."

In addition to the usual subsidiary events, like Noon at the Nick lunchtime appearances by SCS actors and directors, and the annual Weekend With Shakespeare, SCS will be providing a free groundling ticket (the open picnic area just in front of the stage) for anyone under 18 years of age accompanied by a paying adult. The 2015 season runs from June 30 to August 30.

The forward-funding method has already netted the company 75% of this season's operating costs. But donations are always welcome, so visit the SCS website for further details on all of the above. Then get ready to get wicked!

ALL FOR ONE!

We did it!

Shakespeare will Play On in Santa Cruz for another season.

Theatre lovers across the Bay Area and beyond will be thrilled to know that three months of community crowd-funding to keep the spirit of Shakespeare Santa Cruz alive and on the boards for another year has paid off.

Thanks to a plucky assemblage of donors, supporters, cheerleaders, playgoers, and angels of every description, the company formerly known as SSC (and currently operating as Shakespeare Play On) will mount a two-play 2014 summer season. Former SSC Artistic Director Marco Barricelli and beloved actor Mike Ryan will take the reins as Co-Artistic Directors.

Seeking to raise some $800,000 in advance to fund a new season as a nonprofit organization, independent of UCSC, SPO reportedly tallied up closer to $1 million in donations from community supporters like you.

And how will that money be spent? Even now Ryan and Barricelli are hiring actors, directors, designers, and all the other backstage personnel involved in making a successful season. Negotiations are underway as we speak to secure the Sinsheimer-Stanley Festival Glen for the new season, scheduled to begin over the Fourth of July weekend. Details about the season, including the designated plays, will be revealed in March.

But for now, a round of applause (or better yet, champagne!) for everyone involved in making this happen—from Sir Patrick Stewart and the rest of the SPO Advisory Board, and the Arts Council of Santa Cruz County, fiscal sponsor of SPO, to you, the community, for keeping Shakespeare alive in Santa Cruz.

Congratulations to all—you made it so!

(Above: The Three Musketeers, SSC 2011 season)

SSC PLAYS ON

'Tis the season for tidings of joy, and this one's for you, fans of Shakespeare Santa Cruz: the show may yet go on! The entity organized to preserve the goals of SSC and orchestrate its future, Shakespeare Play On, has a couple of announcements.

First, the organization now has its own website, a virtual clearinghouse for information.

Secondly, as we speak, SPO and UCSC are in negotiations to produce a 2014 season in the Stanley-Sinsheimer Festival Glen under the Shakespeare Santa Cruz name.

And finally, SPO has been incorporated as an independent California non-profit. It also has a new fiscal sponsor in place—The Arts Council of Santa Cruz County—which means ACSCC is now enabled to accept donations from intrepid arts supporters like YOU, the Public, to help fund this upcoming season.

Here's how it works: between now and January 15, 2014, the group plans to raise the funds to finance the 2014 season and hire the artistic talent. Revenue from the season will fund the 2015 season, and so on. The goal is to raise $885,000, and contributions from SPO board members and friends in the community have already raised a quarter of the funds.

So, in this season of gifting and giving, consider making a contribution to support entertaining and challenging world class theatre, right here in River City. Operators are standing by at the ACSCC donation site. Type "Shakespeare" in the special purpose dedication box, and dispense some genuine holiday cheer.

Trust me, you'll thank yourself next summer, under the redwoods!

CELEBRATING SSC

SSC program 2000, design by Mott Jordan

Hark ye, all friends and fans of Shakespeare Santa Cruz: here's how to show your support for 32 years of imaginative, inventive, world-class theatre right here in our own backyard.

This Sunday, December 8, at 6 pm, will be the final performance of the final production of SSC as we now know it. Come celebrate the company and all it has meant to the Santa Cruz community by turning out for the last performance of the current holiday show, It's A Wonderful Life: A Live Radio Play, the final joint production between SSC and the UCSC Theater Arts Department.

Even as we speak, plans are afoot for SSC to reinvent itself and rise phoenix-like from the challenges of these last four months as a new, independent enterprise. At the moment, this entity is called Shakespeare Play On, whose organizers have issued this open invitation to the community re: the closing night of It's A Wonderful Life:

"Let’s fill the theater on the evening of the 8th with SSC patrons and friends.  Come and show your support and appreciation for SSC’s 32 years of artistic excellence at UCSC and learn what the future holds for this nationally-recognized theater company."

Sharon Shao, Julia Finch, and Rosie Glen-Lambert

Written by Joe Landry, It's A Wonderful Life is a re-imagining of the beloved Frank Capra holiday movie staged as a radio drama being broadcast live ca. 1946. The hard-working cast of six actors and three chorus girls/commercial jingle singers voice all the parts and provide all the hands-on, in-studio sound effects for a charmingly retro and warm-hearted dose of holiday cheer.

At this, the closing of the (first) SSC era, let's stop and remember what a challenging and provocative 32 years its been. In addition to dynamic productions from the Shakespeare oeuvre every season (and I mean all of the oeuvre, from crowd-pleasers like A Midsummer Night's Dream, Romeo and Juliet, and Macbeth, to thornier work like Cymbeline and Titus Andronicus), local audiences were also treated to the best of world theatre, both classical and modern.

SSC presented Albee, Moliere, Chekhov, Ibsen (hands up everyone who remembers a pre-Walter White Bryan Cranston in A Doll's House, 1992), and Tom Stoppard, to name but a few. (Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead played in rep with Hamlet in 1985, with the same actors in the same roles in both plays.) Non-Bard offerings might be anything from the Stephen Sondheim musical, Company, to Amadeus, from Waiting For Godot to The Three Musketeers.

And let's not forget the exquisite holiday pantomimes (not as in Marcel Marceau; these were "pantos," as Yuletide fairy tale extravaganzas are called in British theatre)—Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, The Wind in the Willows, A Year With Frog and Toad. Sigh.

Personally, I was hoping there would be a bit more panto in SSC's last holiday extravaganza, but that's just me.

Once upon a time, it just wouldn't be Christmas without Mike Ryan and a dancing bear!

Still, for anyone who has ever loved this company, this is a great opportunity to celebrate all Shakespeare Santa Cruz has been in its glorious past, and look forward to all it might yet be. Get your tickets now!

CAPRA CANNED

Feast your eyes on this fabulous set for the grand finale of Shakespeare Santa Cruz's 2013 season—and possibly forever, at least in its present incarnation.

For this year's holiday show, SSC and the UCSC Theater Arts Department present It's A Wonderful Life: A Live Radio Play, Joe Landry's popular 1997 play in which the beloved Frank Capra Christmas movie is re-imagined as a radio drama being broadcast live, ca. 1946.

Designer Kate Edmunds does a masterful job recreating the Art Deco interior of a vintage radio studio, complete with big-city skyline outside and "Applause" signs above the "studio audience." Six hard-working actors onstage (joined by a trio of chorus girls, who also harmonize on clever jingles during commercial breaks) play all the parts, reading from scripts into stand-up microphones.

While this cast couldn't be any better, I wonder at the selection of this play. SSC has a proud tradition of robust holiday fairy tale pantomimes (Cinderella; Sleeping Beauty) and delightful animal-centric stories (Frog and Toad; The Wind In the Willows). But I fear children might be mystified by this play.

Do modern kids even know what radio is? And even if they do, children who are eager to embrace magical fairy godmothers, drag-queen step-mothers, and grown men as frogs, toads, badgers, and ugly ducklings may not understand a static line of grown-ups standing onstage pretending to be different people.

With the play's single set (as handsome as it is), and no costume changes, the choosing of this play feels like a cost-cutting measure. And that's such a shame. It's a perfectly respectable production in every way. All that's missing is the magic. (Read more)

LOVE MATCH

Fred Arsenault and Gretchen Hall

Laughter and love reign in gorgeous SSC 'Taming of the Shrew'

Shakespeare Santa Cruz launches its 2013 season with a crowd-pleasing, often uproarious production of The Taming of the Shrew. The company has a newly rebuilt and reconfigured performance space to show off in the Sinsheimer/Stanley Festival Glen (although to the lay viewer, nothing appears to be radically altered), and they inaugurate it in style with this visually gorgeous production.

Lively incidental music and B. Modern's lavish costumes evoke the Renaissance, while the action flows gracefully across Michael Ganio's formidable, multi-tiered set, and all around the Glen. It's a splendid setting for one of Shakespeare's brightest, yet most misunderstood romantic comedies.

Director Edward Morgan wisely keeps the emphasis on laughter (literally; every character has his own distinctive chuckle), so that the lusty romantic coupling at the play's core sneaks up on the audience by stealth, then explodes in all its heartfelt complexity.

Hortensio (William Ellsman) woos Bianca (Victoria Nassif)

Things get going with the arrival of fussbudgety Hortensio (the hilarious William Elsman) and elderly Gremio (an irascibly funny Kit Wilder), two wealthy suitors to pretty young Bianca (Victoria Nassif). But her doting father, Baptista (the wonderful V Craig Heidenreich, who always manages to coax four or five insinuating syllables out of his daughter's name), has decreed that Bianca cannot wed until her elder sister, Katherine (Gretchen Hall) finds a husband.

Katherine, underappreciated by a father who clearly prefers her sister, and too smart to suffer fools gladly or curb her sarcasm, is ill-tempered most of the time, and the dynamic Hall shows us every atom of her frustration.

But Bianca's suitors collude with Petruchio (Fred Arsenault, suitably robust and witty), a rough-hewn, outspoken knight from Verona, to woo Katharine.

The play is often considered problematic, chiefly by those who interpret the words "taming" and "shrew" too literally. Kate is profoundly unhappy in her home life and unable to escape it by any other means than marriage. Petruchio is an eccentric drawn to an unconventional spirit equal to his own. He's not trying to break her spirit, nor demanding Kate's blind obedience to a capricious master; rather, he is asking her to trust him in maneuvering around social conventions to create an extraordinary life together.

In an effective production like this one, Kate's final speech resonates because we understand the complicity between the two of them—to rise up together above the mundane conventions of their society and live on their own terms. Their partnership is not a "taming," it's a liberation—for both of them. We get that here when Arsenault's jaunty Petruchio reacts to Kate's speech not with a victor's smugness, but with astonished awe. His Kate has outwitted them all, and we see in their final embrace the birth of a genuine love match that warms the audience all the way home. (Read more)

PERSONS of PINTEREST

Cristina Anselmo and Mike Ryan in The Lovers.

 JTC/SSC co-production an actors showcase


For the final offering of its 2012/2013 season, Jewel Theatre Company teams up with Shakespeare Santa Cruz to present an evening of two one-act plays by Harold Pinter. With popular performers Paul Whitworth, Mike Ryan and JTC Artistic Director Julie James onstage, and James and SSC Artistic Director Marco Barricelli handling directing duties, that's a lot of bang for the buck on the tiny Center Stage.

JTC continues to earn its reputation for presenting challenging, often unorthodox live theatre in the heart of downtown Santa Cruz, and the Pinter plays are no exception.  First up, The Lovers, is more overtly "Pinteresque," a snapshot of marital gamesmanship with a wry, acerbic edge. Its companion piece, One For the Road, is something completely different, a cold-blooded portrait of a political torturer.

What these tense, compact pieces have in common are the dishy roles they provide for the talent onstage.

Mike Ryan and Cristina Anselmo are both terrific in The Lovers. Button-down, bowler-hatted Richard leaves for his financial job in the City (ie: London) every morning after exchanging a few caustic remarks with stay-at-home wife, Sarah, about the "lover" she will be entertaining in his absence and the "whore" he will visit on his way home.

Paul Whitworth and Mike Ryan in One For the Road.

Their comments are so arch, the audience thinks it's all just talk—until we drop in on each of them later in the day and see what sort of shenanigans each is getting up to. Julie James directs the piece as a brisk fugue on marriage, sex, and identity, with a couple of nifty surprises, played out with wit and brio by Anselmo and Ryan.

A bit less user-friendly is One For The Road, directed by Marco Barricelli. It's set in an interrogation chamber in an unnamed place or time, where victims of severe political torture are ushered in to meet with the man running the show, Nicolas (Paul Whitworth). There's not much of a story (beyond man's capacity for inhumanity), and the piece is less a drama with a resolution than a character study.

But it's a great role for Whitworth, who excels at this kind of prowling menace thinly veiled as unctuous bonhomie. Ryan and James appear briefly as two of his victims, along with talented young Diego Hammana, a student at Mar Vista Elementary making his professional theater debut.

Also making her JTC debut is veteran SSC costume designer B. Modern. (I especially liked the navy blue dress with faux bolero top Sarah zips herself into for her tryst in The Lovers.) And as always, Ron Gasparinetti's thoughtful sets make maximum use of that most intimate Center Stage space.

This production runs through May 19. Click here for tickets and info!

GLEN TIDINGS

Get ready to pray for a fog-free summer this year, when Shakespeare Santa Cruz presents its first ever all-outdoor summer season.

Traditionally, one, if not more, of the SSC summer productions in repertoire is mounted indoors, in the Mainstage Theatre. But in this pared down, 2013 season, all three of the plays (including the Fringe offering) will be performed outside, under the redwoods, in the newly renovated Sinsheimer-Stanley Festival Glen.

Watching a live performance in the Glen has always been a high point of any SSC season, with the breeze whispering in the redwoods, above (or the moon and stars peeking through the foliage), and the "groundlings" sprawled at the foot of the stage, with their picnic baskets. Who doesn't have fond memories of the cast of Danny Scheie's original production of A Comedy of Errors  on their tandem bicycle pedaling down the aisles to the stage? Or Paul Whitworth in an earlier production of Henry IV Part I, arriving out of the forest on a motorcycle? Or J. Todd Adams as Puck back-flipping off the stage in A Midsummer Night's Dream?

It all harks back to Shakepeare's era, when going to the theatre was always an open-air experience. Elizabethan theatres were built in a round or octagonal shape (The Rose, sketched above, the Globe, The Curtain, The Swan), with thatched roofs over the tiers of boxes. But the stage in the middle and the groundling area before it were left uncovered; plays were performed in the daytime and they needed all the natural light they could get.

The SSC Festival Glen has living redwoods and banked seating instead of thatch and boxes. It also has a sophisticated electrical lighting system, which can make for some atmospheric, even spooky nighttime effects. (Remember the ghosts and witches popping up out of the foliage in an early production of Macbeth?)

And improvements are being made to the Glen as we speak. Scenic Designer Michael Ganio promises an expanded picnic area down front, and improved sightlines from all angles in the raked seating opposite the stage.

As to what's going on that stage this year, here's the scoop. This season's comedy will be The Taming Of the Shrew, Shakespeare's popular and funny, yet notoriously un-PC battle-of-the-sexes romp.

The drama will be Henry V, possibly the most heroic of Shakespeare's history plays; it's also the final installment of the "Henriad," the three-play cycle begun with Henry IV Part 1 in 2011, and Henry IV Part 2 last summer. Charles Pasternak will return to the role of Prince Hal/Henry.  Follow the links to catch up with the story so far!

Finally, this summer's Fringe production will be a new adaptation of Henry Fielding's 18th Century novel Tom Jones, the sexy coming-of-age tale of a good-hearted young foundling "born to be hanged," and a world of hungry women who have more creative ideas. The show will be staged in the Glen for two performances only by the entire cast of this year's SSC interns.

The SSC 2013 season plays July 23 to September 1. Tickets go on sale Tuesday, April 2. Visit the SSC website for ticket info, and watch a video where Artistic Director Marco Barricelli explains it all for you.

See you in the Glen!

DUELING DIVAS

Julie James (L) and Diana Torres Koss (R)

Queens struggle for power in JTC's ambitious Mary Stuart


Two great divas from the local theater scene play two of the greatest divas in history in Mary Stuart, the inaugural offering of the Jewel Theatre Company's 2012-2013 season. This historical play dramatizes the conflict between Queen Elizabeth Tudor of England and her cousin, Mary Stuart, Queen of Scots, a volatile pair of queens brought to life con brio at Center Stage by JTC veterans Diana Torres Koss and Julie James.

When director Susan Myer Silton went looking for a property with strong female roles, it's easy to see why she pounced on this one. Based on an 1800 German play by Friedrich Schiller and given a spiffy new translation by English playwright Peter Oswald in 2005, Mary Stuart distills the complex power struggle between the two queens into a subtle war of wills and words as both women navigate the often conflicting demands of honor, politics, religion, the obligations of queenship, and the vagaries of the human heart. (Read more)

Btw, exciting plans are afoot for JTC next spring when the intrepid home-grown company partners with Shakespeare Santa Cruz. The fruit of this intriguing collaboration will be an evening of two one-act plays by Harold Pinter. One For the Road, directed by SSC Artistic Director Marco Barricelli, will feature Paul Whitworth, Mike Ryan, and Julie James. The Lover, will be directed by James and feature Ryan in the cast.

Play dates are April 25 - May 12, 2013, so mark your calendars now!

RASCALS and ROYALS

It's wine, women and song for Richard Ziman's Falstaff

Comedy and kingship rule in SSC's funny, moving 'Henry IV Part 2'

Sir John Falstaff rides again in Henry IV Part 2, the third production in Shakespeare Santa Cruz's 2012 summer season. The sequel to last year's popular Henry IV Part 1, returning director Scott Wentworth's production of H4P2 offers plenty of drama—death and loss, kingship, statecraft, rebellion, family dynamics, and the passing of the crown from one generation to the next, along with a resonant meditation on aging that runs throughout the play.

But the centerpiece is the bawdy comedy and ignoble scheming of Falstaff, and Richard Ziman's robust, gargantuan performance in the role. Extravagantly dressed by costumer B.Modern in a variety of hilariously spangled and braided military outfits and luxurious frock coats, Ziman fills the cavernous Festival Glen with this lusty, bragging, blustery, old rogue and his appetites—for food, wine, and women, for fleecing his friends in pursuit of all of the above, for life itself.

Repeating in the role from last year, Ziman has a stand-up comedian's knack for connecting with the crowd, delighting himself (and us) with his own merriment; his famous speech in praise of sack (wine) is a bravura showstopper, and yet the fleeting moments when he pauses to ponder the inevitability of aging and what lies beyond are just as compelling.

Charles Pasternak as Hal, the Prince who would be King

H4P2 is really less a sequel than a second act between the battles, roistering and political maneuvering of Henry IV Part 1 and the triumphant kingship of Prince Hal in Henry V (the final play in the "Henriad" cycle, coming to SSC in 2013).

The old king is dying, and Prince Hal (the excellent Charles Pasternak) is scarcely to be seen. Which leaves much of the play to Falstaff, contemplating the favoritism and life of ease he expects once Hal, his former protégé, gains the throne.

But for all the frivolity—and there's plenty of it—the play reaches its powerful and very moving climax in the final encounter between old Henry (V Craig Heidenreich) and Prince Hal. Each has much to regret and each needs absolution from the other, and between the textured emotions and unexpected physical business with which the actors and Wentworth navigate Shakespeare's poetry, the scene is a knockout. Heidenreich's mercurial voice is one of the chief assets of this production, and Pasternak is such a dynamic presence, the play feels a bit empty when he's not around. (Read more)

FANTASTIC FOUR

Musketeers ride again in SSC's rousing 'Man In the Iron Mask'

It's a rare treat to get to review a brand new play at Shakespeare Santa Cruz. It's even more fun when the play is as rollicking a success as Scott Wentworth's delicious The Man in the Iron Mask. The second offering in SSC's 2012 season, it's a sequel to last season's popular production of The Three Musketeers. Using material from two later Alexandre Dumas novels, Wentworth and director John Sipes collaborate to give the audience piling into the Sinsheimer-Stanley Festival Glen everything they've come to see—action, humor, love, honor, and plenty of roistering camaraderie.

20 years after events in the last play, the original three Musketeers have retired. Their former comrade-in-arms, D'Artagnan (Kit Wilder) has become Captain of the King's Musketeers, although now he serves a new king, son of his last employer—pleasure-seeking, war-mongering young Louis XIV (Charles Pasternak). The dying Queen Mother, Anne of Austria (an elegant, heartfelt Marion Adler), sets the plot in motion with a secret visit to ex-Musketeer, Aramis (V Craig Heidenreich), now a priest, with a terrible confession: her part in the unjust imprisonment of a young boy in the Bastille years earlier.

Meanwhile, Porthos (Ted Barton), now a wealthy baron hosting the king's upcoming birthday fete, is fretting about the state of his wardrobe. Athos (the formidable Dierk Torsek), now a count, has retired to a contemplative, teetotaler's life on his country estate—until King Louis sends Athos' only son, the dashing guardsman, Raoul (Armando McLain) off to a volatile war zone so the king can bring Raoul's betrothed, Louise (Lisa Kitchens), to court, and seduce her.

Aramis discovers the masked prisoner is Philippe (also Pasternak, wonderful in both dual roles), compassionate twin brother to Louis with just as legitimate a claim to the throne. Intrigues abound, loyalties are tested, friendships renewed, honor upheld, and, of course, swords are crossed as the plot gallops along. The play is both stirring and funny, especially when the old comrades are onstage together. ("Age before Beauty." "Pearls before swine," Athos and Porthos spar, each attempting to politely usher the other through a doorway.) And the cast is terrific. (Read more)

(Above: Kit Wilder as D'Artagnan (left) with Gabriel Lawrence as conniving Royal Guardsman De Wardes. Photo by rr jones.)