STAGE REVIEW : OLD WILL IS ‘ALIVE!’ BUT NOT WELL

“Oh, dear,” said a patron leaving the GEM Theatre in Garden Grove the other night. He had just seen “Shakespeare--1614, Alive!” by Donald Freed and Geoffrey Forward, a solo show in which Forward pretends to be William Shakespeare.

The idea is that Will, in his dotage, comes up to London from Stratford for a reunion of the old crowd from the Globe Theatre. But nobody’s around, so he ends up reminiscing with an imaginary audience (us) about his life, with appropriate tags from his plays.

Rather a strained premise, but it’s the tags that really make you cringe. “Sorry I’m late--the law’s delay, you know,” Shakespeare will say. Or, looking at a stage trunk: “What lazy rogue and peasant slave left this here?” Or, gossiping about Elizabeth and Essex: “I could a tale unfold.” Or even: “Well . . . ‘All’s Well That Ends Well!’ ”

It’s like hearing someone declaim a Shakespearean concordance aloud. “This sceptered isle . . . hawk from a handsaw . . . Double-double, toil and trouble . . . Out, out, brief candle . . . . “

For visual aids, there is a candle for Forward to blow out; a cannikin (filled with something that looks like red Kool-Aid) for him to clink; a skull for him to look into. One almost expects him to produce a handsaw.

Well, it might have worked . . . with Laurence Olivier. But even Olivier would have to keep reminding us that this is a man with a wandering mind--not the Elizabethan counterpart of some full-of-himself pop composer presenting snatches of his biggest hits.

Forward does offer some old-gaffer trembles, but the ground- note of his performance is how much fun he’s having dressed up as Will--won’t we join in? No. It’s a lousy makeup job and a vulgar idea.

The script’s one interesting idea is that Shakespeare’s father may have been tortured by Elizabeth’s secret police for religious nonconformity (it is known that his fortunes took a drastic tumble for a time). The notion of breaking a glove-maker’s fingers is cruelly apt, and there may be the germ of a real play here.

As for Forward, there’s a moment at the curtain call, as he launches into the porter’s speech from “Macbeth,” when he seems on the brink of creating a Shakespearean character.

Otherwise--oh, dear.

‘SHAKESPEARE--1614, ALIVE!’ Donald Freed and Geoffrey Forward’s medley of Shakespearean fact and fancy, presented by the Grove Shakespeare Festival at the GEM Theatre, Garden Grove. Director Freed. Set Cliff Faulkner. Lighting Gary Christensen. Makeup design Ziggy. Stage manager Doug Jockinsen. With Forward. Plays at 8 p.m. Wednesday-Saturday; at 7:30 p.m. Sunday. Closes Aug. 31. Tickets $12-$14. 12852 Main St., Garden Grove. (714) 636-7213.