By Kelly Oristano
Actors Cabaret audiences are wonderful and loyal. They are also composed of what we might call “Broadway Musical Nerds.” For the next three weekends, their loyalty and geekdom is being rewarded with a fun new musical laser-targeted at the 21st-Century Fan of 20th Century Musicals. Something Rotten, written by Karey and Wayne Kirkpatrick and John O’Farrell, directed here by Joe Zingo, is at its core a non-stop firehose of intentionally bad jokes, diverse catchy ditties, and so many theater in-jokes and musical references that no one could possibly catch them all.
Does it have a great story? Kind of! As much as any musical, which is just about the point. Two Elizabethan brothers, Nick and Nigel Bottom, theater makers, contemporaries and rivals of Shakespeare, star of the age, need their Next Big Idea or their patron is going to pull his support. Nick spends the crew’s paltry savings on a soothsayer with muddled visions of what successful theater in ‘the future’ will look like. These visions lead to Nick and Nigel inventing “The Musical” a couple hundred years early. And also to a ton of laughs.
The cast is good and huge, with 21 actors listed in the program. Erica Jean and Isabella Willis are standouts as the Bottom Brothers’ right-hand women. Both squeeze all the comedy and musical goodness out of their roles. Colin Gray and Cody Mendonca are great as Nigel and Nick, carrying most of the storytelling and playing well together as brothers. Chris McVein is strong as Shakespeare and throws down the Rock Star panache that the script asks for convincingly.
At its best, this production has a frantic Muppet Showesque energy, as the torrent of musical references and theater in-jokes stack upon each other so quickly that there almost isn’t room to breathe between the Lion King laugh and the Dreamgirls laugh, the Rent laugh and the Sound of Music laugh, each accompanied by a spectacle of stagecraft, costume, and choreography appropriate to the joke being made.
The costumes by Zingo and Mary Jensen are amazing as always and the set is delightful, drawing oohs and ahhs from entering patrons. The music ranges from “lute and lyre” through jazzy mid-century show tunes up to the piano rock strains of ’90s musicals, and the songs are good if a bit uneven. I certainly woke up with one of them stuck in my head the next morning. The lyrics are a bit hit and miss. There’s some great stuff in there, nice character songs, good jokes, but I also heard someone rhyme “pickle” with “quick’ll,” which left an appropriately sour taste in my mouth.
A word here about the level of the comedy presented in Something Rotten. Comedy snobs will look down on cheap, easy jokes, (aka Dad Jokes) as low-hanging fruit. On that score, the jokes in Something Rotten have already fallen to the ground. And gotten stuck to the bottom of your shoe. And it felt like there were a thousand of them — real groaners, shades of Henny Youngman, or even Fozzie Bear. Shakespeare himself was, as we’re all taught, quite bawdy and low when he went for laughs. And let’s be clear that this is a good thing. The virtuosity with which the Kirkpatricks and O’Farrell string the jokes and references together is a wonder to behold, even if you have to grab your gut sometimes in the beholding. Creators of jokes can judge as they will, but we consumers of jokes need groaners, we need bawdy puns and bad Dad Jokes. Groaning and laughing at a succession of rapid fire one-liners will provide a classical catharsis of exactly the sort that theatre has always existed to provide. You will feel better at the end of Something Rotten than you did at the beginning — it’s almost a lock.
The opening night audience at Actors Cabaret of Eugene went absolutely wild for this production. Hooting, hollering, just short of throwing things at the cast. It was impressively successful as a comedy. The cast look poised to have a wickedly fun run.
Consider joining them.
Something Rotten! at Actors Cabaret of Eugene
When: 7:30 p.m. on Feb. 24-25, and March 3-4 and 10-11 (doors open at 6 p.m. for those purchasing dinner); and 2 p.m. on Feb. 26 and March 5 (doors open 12:30 p.m. for those purchasing brunch)
Where: Actors Cabaret of Eugene, 996 Willamette St., Eugene
Tickets: Show only, $19-$30; dinner and show, $55-$60; brunch and show, $53-$55; available by phone at 51-683-4368 or online at actorscabaret.org
