“Take that, Will Shakespeare!” (says a jealous writer, stabbing the wrong person)

I can count on the fingers of one hand, with a couple of fingers to spare, the number of Fringe productions I really want to see again before the festival closes. Bards from Four Humors Theater is one of them.

First, it’s a rollicking good comedy adventure story. The tag line is “Christopher Marlowe, spy for the Queen, enlists William Shakespeare on his most dangerous mission yet.” But it’s a heck of a lot more than that. One of the running gags is that the poets of the time are all somehow involved in being mercenaries for hire. The pen may be mightier than the sword, but these Elizabethan scribblers always have a dagger at the ready. Blood, in the form of yards of red ribbon, flows freely in ways that are at the same time theatrical, comical and deadly serious.

Really, I should hate Nick Ryan. He makes the rest of us playwrights look bad. He cranks out one astonishingly smart funny script after another, tackling classic tales from Oedipus (“Inspector Rex,” which I’m still kicking myself for missing) to the end of the world (Deviled Eggs). Now, even though you don’t need to know who all the writers actually were in order to enjoy the story of Bards, I feel like I’m not a well-rounded writer myself if I don’t do a little more homework on my literary forebears from England. For a guy with a graduate education in theater, I feel remarkably stupid around Mr. Ryan sometimes. The amount of knowledge kicking around in that fellow’s brain that he bends and twists into entertaining stories for the stage can be more than a little intimidating. But that’s my problem, not the audience’s. You can easily enjoy the story of the tale of spies and skullduggery that it is, and completely skip over the footnotes in your mind. Like one of the main characters, William Shakespeare, Nick Ryan appeals to both high brow and low in the same breath, without explanation or apology. None needed. (Mention should be made that Nick also turns up onstage, too, in supporting roles around the edges of the story, from informer to kitchen wench, always to good comic effect.)

Second, and to me personally the more compelling reason to see it again, it’s a really touching love story. Part romantic comedy, part romantic adventure, part romantic tragedy, one of the main things driving the central characters, above duty even to religion or the Queen, is love. It’s not obvious at the outset. In fact, I’ve written before about how the previews of this production had me a little nervous. William Shakespeare (Matt Spring) is getting more than just financial patronage from the Earl of Southhampton (Colin Waitt). The clearly smitten Earl gets Shakespeare baptized a Catholic and then doesn’t wait more than a moment to start mounting him - safe in the knowledge they can get special absolution for the all the sins the Earl is very willing to commit with Will as a reluctant accomplice. Colin Waitt is fearlessly (and, watch out, deceptively) fey as the Earl, prancing about and hovering around Shakespeare like a lovesick schoolgirl, praising each sonnet before Will has a chance to finish reciting even half of it. If that were as far as the wacky homosexual comedy went, I’d have been crossing my arms and silently fuming.

But this is Four Humors Theater at work, so of course, that’s not the end of it. The Earl is also the center of a conspiracy against the Queen (the wonderfully wry Barbra Berlovitz). So Her Majesty calls upon Christopher Marlowe (Danny Salmen), even though he is tired of killing and trying to get out of the mercenary business, to get evidence of the Earl’s treachery so he can be locked away. The clincher for Marlowe is that the man on the inside of the Earl’s compound who might be convinced to join the fight for the Queen is Will Shakespeare.

Will is more than just an old friend of Marlowe’s. We are set up by Marlowe’s hilarious group of drinking buddies (by turns bloodthirsty and inept, often both) - Jason Ballweber, Brant Miller, Maria Effertz, Katie Hartman and Steve Horstmann - to think that Shakespeare’s nothing but a plagiarizing hack taking Marlowe’s ideas and reworking them as his own. But there’s more than just professional jealousy going on here. When Marlowe and Shakespeare finally meet and talk, calling each other Kit and Will, in speaking of the Earl, Shakespeare mentions “the patronage of a handsome young nobleman.”

“Handsome?” Kit says, a look of hurt on his face.

And that’s when it hit me. These guys used to be a lot more than just friends. Danny Salmen cuts a dashing figure as Kit Marlowe, complete with leather jacket over his Elizabethan pantaloons. It’s a look that really shouldn’t work, but Salmen could make anything, including a burlap sack look pretty damn sexy. Also, Danny, didn’t you get the memo? People this good-looking shouldn’t also be talented. You’re ruining the curve for the rest of us. When Salmen’s deep brown eyes shine with puppy-dog devotion to Will Shakespeare, who wouldn’t melt, really? Matt Spring is a great comic foil as Will. On paper, he’s a wizard with the pen, but in conversation, he gets outrageously tongue-tied. Words simply desert him. The more intense the situation, the more pronounced the problem gets, making even the most dire moments a time to laugh. They make a cute couple. The bond Kit and Will share gives them both the courage to take on the Earl, and figures prominently in the final bloody showdown.

There are numerous other virtues to this rollercoaster of a production - not the least of which are the madrigal interludes sung by the drinking buddies, composed by Nicholas Jacobson-Larson, based on music and lyrics by (I’m not kidding) the Wu-Tang Clan. Fabulous.

It’s perfect Fringe fare. If you haven’t seen it, you need to. Meanwhile, I have to find a way to see it again.

PS - Mom also loved it. She's recorded on a podcast saying so.

Very highly recommended.

Next Performance - Tonight, Wednesday 8/8 at 7pm

Remaining Performances - Saturday 8/11 at 5:30pm, and Sunday 8/12 at 4pm

category: 5 Star Shows - Life Altering Experience
Wednesday, August 8, 2007 at 12:05 PM