On Theater: Shakespeare vaults from screen to SCR stage

By Tom Titus

Jan. 24, 2018 12 PM PT

For the past two decades “Shakespeare in Love” has primarily been noteworthy as the clever movie comedy that upset the favored “Saving Private Ryan” to win the 1998 best picture Oscar. Four years ago the Marc Norman-Tom Stoppard concoction joined the realm of live theater.

The stage version, a near mirror image of the movie, currently resides at South Coast Repertory, where outgoing artistic director Marc Masterson has rendered his swan song at SCR a production to remember. It’s elaborately staged, costumed and enacted with some bravura performances.

While non-Shakespeare buffs in the audience may not immediately grasp the significance of the many authoritative supporting characters who make up the England of the Bard’s formative years, the major figures represented will keep them thoroughly occupied.

As the show opens, young Will (Paul David Story) is casting his latest, still far from finished, comedy tentatively called “Romeo and Ethel, the Pirate’s Daughter.” Of course, we all know how that title will change.

Shakespeare has a lively but comradely relationship with his elder rival playwright, Christopher Marlowe, known as Kit (Corey Brill). Both Story and Brill ignite the proceedings with sharp, energetic performances and keep the pace from slacking.

Enter Viola de Lesseps, in the comely form of Carmela Corbett, a young lady so enamored of the Bard’s prose that she disguises herself in reverse drag as “Thomas Kent,” bidding for and winning the role of Romeo — and also capturing the playwright’s heart when she doffs her fake mustache (unlike Gwyneth Paltrow in the movie, she doffs little else). Corbett’s strength of character, in an era when women were forbidden to act on stage, is quite remarkable.

Strongest among the supporting players is William Francis McGuire, whom SCR audiences will recognize from his many appearances in “A Christmas Carol,” as Fennyman, the domineering money lender who’s ecstatic when he’s offered a cameo in the play. Also impressive is Bill Brochtrup as the cash-poor nobleman who pursues Viola with mercenary passion.

David Nevel animatedly enacts the choice role of Edmund Tilney, the ebullient master of revels who sees the art of theater as “a mystery.” Bo Foxworth, Louis Lotorto and Nick Gabriel shine in crucial supporting assignments while Elyse Mirto is a regal presence as a no-nonsense Queen Elizabeth I.

Comedy is sprinkled throughout the script as various future Shakespearean references are dropped, the funniest being a command to Spot, an amiable bulldog: “Out, damned Spot. Out I say.”

Scenic designer Ralph Funicello has fashioned one of his most imposing backdrops and Susan Tsu’s Elizabethan costumes are truly elegant. Scott Waara conducts a percussion-heavy combo often shushed by an actor.

Familiarity with Shakespeare’s work definitely will enrich enjoyment of the SCR production, but even casual patrons will find much to appreciate in this elaborate stage version of “Shakespeare in Love” at South Coast Repertory.