Theater Reviews : Imagine a Really Bard Day at the Office

Get thee to a funnery seems to be the message of Ann-Marie MacDonald’s “Goodnight Desdemona (Good Morning Juliet),” a wickedly witty parody of Shakespeare in its Southern California premiere at the San Diego Repertory Theatre’s Lyceum Space.

A mousy, painfully repressed assistant English professor, Constance Ledbelly (Darla Cash), is at the nadir of her life. She just discovered that the faithless Prof. Claude Night (Jonathan Fried), whom she has spent the past 10 years loving and ghostwriting for, is about to marry another and take the tenured post that should have been hers.

She doesn’t fight back. Instead, she gives up on all her dreams--particularly the one in which she planned to prove that “Othello” and “Romeo and Juliet” were originally comedies by some unknown author, later rewritten by Shakespeare.

Then, like Alice falling through a rabbit hole, she trips into her own private Wonderland--the world of Shakespeare. And she finally gets her chance to clear up the pivotal trivialities--the lost hankie and the delayed wedding announcement--and so save Desdemona and Juliet from their tragic fates.

And if she can alchemize their tragedies into comedies, can she do the same for herself? The question is laid out tantalizingly, but the playwright herself leaves it unanswered in the weakest portion of the play--the ending.

Still, the play as a whole is laugh-out-loud funny, expertly directed by Sam Woodhouse and deliciously delivered by a first-rate cast.

The comedy soars when Constance finds herself unexpectedly center stage, embroiled in the ensuing plot complications, crossing swords with Tybalt, outwitting the jealous machinations of Desdemona (who suspects her of sneaking off with Othello) and fending off advances by both Romeo and Juliet, who have all too soon tired of their fulfilled love.

It’s an old but reliable premise: nebbish thrown into extraordinary circumstances begins to realize the powers within. It worked most recently in the Jim Carrey movie “The Mask.”

All except Cash play multiple roles, suggesting that this is a dream in which she imagines how the people in her life fit into these plays. Constance gets some revenge on Prof. Claude, played with wonderfully shallow bombast by Fried, by imagining him as an obtuse Othello--in the scene where he is fooled by Iago--as well as the belligerent Tybalt and Juliet’s silly Nurse.

Claude’s intended, a curvaceous student named Ramona (played smart and with sass by Shanesia Davis), becomes a passionate Desdemona as well as the hotheaded Mercutio. A vapid student, delivered with wide-eyed charm by Jennifer Barrick, becomes a Valley Girl of a Juliet.

The only person who has no direct counterpart in Constance’s real life is the mercurial Ron Campbell, who brings a dark and much-needed edge of danger to the parts of Iago and the Ghost, while indulging a bit much in the silliness of MacDonald’s Romeo.

*

Michelle Riel’s expansive set--gray columns, curved staircases, a balcony, trapdoors and books, real and photographed, tumbling everywhere--suggests the rich landscape of the mind in which this dream can flourish. Janice Louise Benning’s costumes heighten the fun--particularly in the contrast between Desdemona’s sexy, clinging clothes and Constance’s shapeless brown and gray woolen duds.

“Goodnight Desdemona” premiered in Toronto in 1988, making its way to the United States in 1991 via Pittsburgh. It’s been in at least a dozen cities since then and deserves to be in many more.

A significant part of its triumph exists outside the play itself, which is funny but flawed--particularly when MacDonald tries to wrap things up in the second act. But congratulations are definitely in order for the way this play kicks “Romeo and Juliet” and “Othello” off their pedestals, reminding us that each generation needs to take a break from revering the classics to laugh and identify with them.

* “Goodnight Desdemona (Good Morning Juliet),” San Diego Repertory Theatre, Lyceum Space, 79 Horton Plaza, San Diego. Tonight and Saturday, 8 p.m.; Sunday, 2 and 7 p.m. Ends Sunday. $19-$25. (619) 235-8025. Running time: 2 hours, 25 minutes.

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Jennifer Barrick Juliet/Student/Soldier

Ron Campbell: Romeo/Chorus/Iago/Ghost

Darla Cash: Constance Ledbelly

Shanesia Davis: Desdemona/Ramona/Mercutio/Servant

Jonathan Fried: Othello/Tybalt/Juliet’s Nurse/Professor Claude Night

A San Diego Repertory Theatre production of Ann-Marie MacDonald’s play. Directed by Sam Woodhouse. Sets: Michelle Riel. Costumes: Janice Louise Benning. Lights: Jose Lopez. Sound: Jeff Ladman. Fight direction: John Cashman. Choreography: Javier Velasco. Stage manager: Diana J. Moser.