The title of the show is “Something Rotten!,” but the musical and its current local production are instead fresh and vibrant. The venue, too, is unique: Church of the Good Shepherd on Braddock Road in Burke. This Virginia suburban location belies the show’s tribute to Broadway musicals with a Shakespeare focus.
The story follows Renaissance-era show producer Nick Bottom (Andy Shaw is excellent in the role) and his playwright brother Nigel (a sensitive portrayal by Craig Goeringer) who struggle against the enormous popularity of William Shakespeare in Elizabethan London. They must come up with a hit play to pay their bills!
Nick encounters the prophet Nostradamus (played riotously by Chris Dockins), with less reliable predictions than his more famous uncle, to prophesy and channel Shakespeare’s next hit so Nick and company can steal the idea and produce it themselves. The Nostradamus scion does so, but it misfires uproariously, as his prediction for Shakespeare’s future play “Hamlet” gets mixed up with twentieth-century Broadway musicals. Hamlet’s uncle is no longer Claudius but Scar, borrowed from the Hamlet-like plot in “The Lion King.” “How do you solve a problem like Ophelia?” one of the troupe asks, a plot mélange of “The Sound of Music” and “Hamlet.” A fiddler is even seen on a roof playing a violin during Nick’s off-the-mark Hamlet-pastiche.
Along the way in “Something Rotten!,” we meet characters and names borrowed from famous Shakespeare plays: to name a few, Portia and Shylock from “The Merchant of Venice” and Falstaff from the “Henry IV” history plays and “The Merry Wives of Windsor.” Bea (Maura Lacy), disguised as a lawyer and thus taking on the role of Portia from “Merchant,” has a pleasingly voiced solo towards the end of the play in “Right Hand Man,” just before she helps the Bottom brothers sing their way out of trouble as defendants in a court of law.
While Nostradamus is wildly inaccurate about the nature and tragic import of “Hamlet,” he is prophetically on the mark about the future rise and popularity of the genre of the musical in the New World. Upbeat songs, orchestral fanfares in major key, and tap dancing permeate “Something Rotten,” which celebrates and good-naturedly satirizes Broadway musicals. “Gypsy,” Jesus Christ Superstar,” and “Annie” (among others) are sampled in orchestral cues, whereas “The King and I,” “The Sound of Music,” and “My Fair Lady” (among others) are referenced in dialogue. Quotes from Shakespeare abound: “Now is the winter of our discontent” (“Richard III”), “All the world’s a stage” (“As You Like It”), and “The rest is silence” (“Hamlet”) are all heard throughout the proceedings. Indeed, the show’s title “Something’s Rotten!”—as in the state of Denmark—is borrowed from “Hamlet.”
The set design by J.R. Shasteen in traditional English Tudor style fits in perfectly with the style of the Good Shepherd’s performance hall itself. The ornate Elizabethan period costumes are colorful and wonderfully detailed, thanks to the efforts of designer Donna Sisson. Conductor Colin Taylor directs an excellent ten-piece orchestra in a score which segues between Baroque brass and electric guitars. Director Nancy Lavallee gives the production spirit and cohesion. Readers of Falls Church News-Press will note with interest among the production team and cast the presence of Falls Church resident Katie Pisocky (assistant director) and Megan Fisher (Portia), the latter of whom sings in the choir at The Falls Church.
The show runs between February 27 and March 8. For more specifics, please visit: https://events.ticketleap.com/tickets/gsmusic/something-rotten
