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REVIEWS
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Click the link to jump to a review: The Wall Street Journal (review by Terry Teachout) nytheatre.com
(review by Marton Denton) |
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| The
Wall Street Journal
Thomas Dekker's “The Shoemaker’s Holiday,” first performed in 1600, hasn’t received a major New York production since 1937, when Orson Welles staged it for his Mercury Theatre. Now it’s being presented by the Storm Theatre, a tiny troupe of which I’d never heard until its press release popped up in my mailbox a couple of weeks ago (the company performs in a black-box theater a block from Broadway). The only reason I bothered to go was because I’d never seen Dekker’s most popular play on stage. Well, guess what? It’s a peach. Peter Dobbins, artistic director of the Storm Theatre, strikes a perfect balance between bawdiness and deep feeling, something that Welles’ heavily cut, coarsely comic staging failed by all accounts to do. Dekker’s prithee-put-a-sock-in-it-old-codswallop dialogue is played to the hilt, especially by Hugh Brandon Kelly, the shoemaker-turned-sheriff (I’d kill for a big bass voice like that), and shameless scene-stealing is the order of the day (Amanda Cronk makes the funniest faces imaginable). Yet the serious parts are given full value, too, and Kelleigh Miller moved me all the way to tears as Jane Damport, who wrongly supposes that her husband has been killed in battle and comes perilously close to marrying again. “The Shoemaker’s Holiday” plays on Thursdays, Fridays and weekends through Feb. 26th. Take a chance on it. You won't be sorry.
nytheatre.com
I count on Peter Dobbins and his Storm Theatre to uncover buried dramatic treasure, revealing hidden gems that should be part of the so-called canon but, for one reason or another, are not. I refer you to, for example, Andre Obey's Noah and Stewart Parker's Spokesong, two exquisite works that Storm mounted recently which, I suspect, no other company would have given a second thought to; each proved to be something of a masterpiece yet had faded into a kind of undeserved obscurity. This time around, Dobbins has dug much further back to reveal to us Thomas Dekker's The Shoemaker's Holiday, a British Renaissance comedy from the late 1590s that is as delightful as it is pertinent. I highly recommend a trip to the Storm's headquarters on 46th Street to catch this sprightly, touching Elizabethan "valentine." Dekker, a contemporary of Shakespeare, is not the poet that the Bard of Avon was; but he seems to have been not so much the snob, either, which makes Shoemaker deliciously refreshing. Instead of relegating to the background the working people who were, more and more, becoming the heart and soul of English society (as happens in, say, Midsummer Night's Dream), Dekker places them front and center in this comedy, which is about, as much as anything, the glory of earning an honest living and the pride and power of the rising middle class. I was surprised at how "American" this English play seems to be, celebrating as it does the values of hard work, harder play, egalitarianism, and freedom of opportunity. But lest I suggest that Shoemaker is anything other than a romp, let me assure you now that this is, for all its sociopolitical subtext, a very pleasing, very sweet, and frequently rowdy good time of a play, brought lovingly and vividly to life by Dobbins and his high-energy cast. At its center is newcomer Gabriel Vaughan who is very appealing as handsome and romantic young Rowland Lacy, nephew to the Earl of Lincoln, so in love with pretty Rose Oateley that he buys himself out of serving in King Henry V's army in France, in order to disguise himself as a shoemaker and be near his beloved. The Earl opposes the match because Rose lacks noble blood—she is the daughter of Sir Roger Oateley, a member of the middle class who is now Lord Mayor of London. Sir Roger's reverse snobbery stands as an obstacle as well. But Rowland, fortunately skilled in the "gentle craft" of shoemaking, is undaunted: donning more modest garb and a garbled Dutch accent, he assumes the role of a Flemish craftsman called Hans Meulter and finds work in the prosperous house of Simon Eyre. And it's here that the play really takes off. Simon is unabashedly common folk; he's the Ralph Kramden of 16th century shoemakers, with a tart-tongued wife named Margery who refuses to be cowed by his blustery insults. Simon's staff consists of the earnest foreman Hodge, a hearty boy apprentice, and a journeyman named Firk who finds himself constantly and comically in the thick of, well, everything: Norton to Simon's Ralph; or, much more accurately—especially in the person of the remarkably nimble young actor Josh Vasquez—Daffy Duck to Simon's Porky Pig. Together, Simon's men abet Hans/Rowland in his cause (the happy ending is never in doubt), and they also help another of their number, Ralph Damport, reunite with his wife Jane after he returns from the wars in France. Dobbins doesn't ease over the implications of Ralph's having to fight in the bloody conflict that our hero Rowland has bought his way out of; the play becomes unexpectedly sorrowful and profound in a few places as the weight of this inequity is allowed to register. But most of the time, Dobbins keeps the tone lighter than air and giddily joyful. There's a scene near the end, at a pancake breakfast being given the shoemakers by Simon Eyre, who by now has (somewhat inexplicably) been made Lord Mayor himself, in which Dobbins lets out all the stops, having his relatively small ensemble cavort like mad children all over the playing area, creating the very satisfying illusion of a cast of thousands. This staging definitely ranks among Dobbins' very best work. I've already mentioned a few of the actors; let me stop here to acknowledge the rest, including Hugh Brandon Kelly, ingratiatingly commanding and just a wee bit foolish as Simon Eyre; Elizabeth Roby, seemingly having a blast in a fat suit as his much-maligned bride Margery; Jose Sanchez, plausibly proletarian as Hodge; Julia Motyka, lovely and appealing as Rose; Amanda Cronk, playing the wily soubrette as her maid Sybil; Ashton Crosby, suitably supercilious as Sir Roger; and Paul Jackel, entirely insufferable as Lincoln. Rounding out the large company are Jason Adams, Kevin Prowse, Kelleigh Miller, Greg Jackson, Travis Walters, and Brad Coolidge, many of whom are double- or even triple-cast, all to fine effect. They're all well-served by Erin Murphy's excellent costumes, which allow the actors to transform themselves nearly instantaneously from one character to another while preserving the world of the play. Michael Abrams's lighting is invaluable in setting mood and establishing time/place on Paul Hudson's lovely but spare set, which is framed by a trio of intersecting hearts. The hearts are completely apropos, of course: love conquers all in The Shoemaker's Holiday—not just romantic love, but love for one's vocation, in this case, the making of shoes. Dekker and Dobbins have indeed collaborated to create a valentine for the audience here, and the timing—just a week before Valentine's Day—is propitious. A 1599 verse comedy as date play?—Why not! Take your sweetheart to The Shoemaker's Holiday, and have a ball. Read the complete nytheatre.com review here.
American Theater Web
In the summer of 2003, playwright Matt Pepper gave New York theatergoers a look behind the pomp and pageantry of Shakespeare’s Henry V, with Matt Pepper’s St. Crispin’s Day a farcical look at some of the common soldiers who would be integral to King Henry’s victory at Agincourt. A more contemporary "back story" to Henry’s wars with France is currently on the stage of the Storm Theatre right now, Thomas Dekker’s The Shoemaker’s Holiday. Dating from 1599, "Shoemaker" looks at some of the men (and their wives and lovers) who do not go into battle – namely Rowland Lacy, nephew to Sir Hugh. Rowland has fallen in love with a mere citizen, Rose, the daughter of London’s Lord Mayor. Rowland’s uncle has arranged for him to lead troops in France simply to prevent his nephew from pursuing his romance. Unwilling to be parted from the woman he loves, Rowland convinces a cousin to lead his men to France, and stays behind disguising himself as a Dutch shoemaker (a trade he learned after spending a small part of his uncle’s fortune on the continent). Rowland goes to work for Simon Eyre, an ambitious craftsman, whose son-in-law Ralph, has been conscripted to serve in France. Ralph leaves behind a wife, Jane, who soon after his departure leaves her family to grieve his absence. At the same time, Rowland (now known as the Dutchman Hans) meets secretly with Rose, who has spurned the attentions of Master Hammond. This man soon meets Jane in a linens shop where she has gone to work to support herself, and to secure Jane’s agreement to marry him, he produces a letter that lists the men killed in action in France. One of them is Ralph. To further complicate matters in "Shoemaker" an investment Simon Eyre makes in a shipping venture suddenly provides him with vast wealth, and he becomes an alderman of London and later the city’s Mayor. Ralph suddenly reappears just as Jane heads to the altar with Lord Hammond. King Henry V himself appears to pardon Rowland and Rose for having married without their guardians’ permission, just as a Simon and his wife, Margery, host a huge celebration for shoemakers throughout London. As these characters seek happiness during wartime, it is a credit to director Peter Dobbins that Dekker’s complex story remains perfectly accessible for today’s audiences. As the production unfolds on Paul Hudson’s Tudor courtyard of a set, where archways sinuously coalesce into giant hearts, "Shoemaker" seems like nothing less than an Elizabethan screwball comedy, with all of that genre’s "types" from arrogant "haves" to pratfalling but much more sensible "have nots." From his 16 person ensemble, Dobbins has elicited a wide range of performances. Among the most successful are Paul Jackel’s stiffly proper Sir Hugh, Amanda Cronk’s grandly mischievous turn as Rose’s maid, Sybil, and Hugh Brandon Kelly as the garrulous Simon Eyre. As the play’s leading couple, Gabriel Vaughan and Julia Motyka do not generate much heat when their romance is at the play’s fore; however, they both shine when trying to outwit their elders. (Vaughan also makes Rowland’s Hans a comic highlight alongside Joshua Vasquez’s humorously kinetic Firk, an apprentice in the shoemaker’s shop.) Audiences will find that accents (although varied) and styles seem simultaneously period and contemporary. These choices underscore the class system that fuels much of the conflict in "Shoemaker." Erin Murphy’s Renaissance costume choices for the large company more than aptly capture period and class on what one assumes must have been a very limited budget. For a company such as the Storm to use its resources to bring this little-known "slice-of-life" confection about life at home during King Henry’s foreign military campaigns is admirable. That the production succeeds so frequently is even more impressive. One hopes that the theater will continue to revisit such works by Shakespeare’s contemporaries, giving audiences the chance to sample other such plays. |
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