There have long been multiple theories about who wrote the works attributed to Shakespeare. In this play (which has understandably received many productions since its 2001 premiere in California), Amy Freed has great fun toying with several possibilities. The result (under Russ Treyz's fast-moving direction) is clever, witty, sexy and unflaggingly entertaining, with nine adept performers taking on fifteen roles. Freed has tossed in occasional rhymed couplets and allusions to Shakespeare's words, and even references to modern classics such as Oklahoma! ("I'm just a maid who cain't say nay") and Kiss Me, Kate ("Always true to you in my fashion"). Or a current cliche may be kicked back to the 16th century, as when Queen Elizabeth says, "Mr. Shakespeare, thou art in water most enormously hot." So we see the bumpkin Will leave his wife and head for London, where actors Henry Condell and John Heminge (who collected the Bard of Avon's plays for the First Folio edition seven years after the dramatist's death) allow him to "shake spears" as a bit player.
Will comes into the circle of Edward De Vere, the Earl of Oxford, who amuses himself with the lowly pastime of writing bad plays. It turns out that Will has a gift for poetry while De Vere is good at coming up with plots ("I see a hunchback...flesh it out"). There is some truth in this, since Shakespeare borrowed all but one or two of his plots from extant sources. So Will becomes De Vere's public front or "beard."
As Will, Ian Kahn brings just the right amount of ardor to his tasks. With curly locks streaming down his shoulders, Brent Harris is a splendid bisexual De Vere, who keeps his lover (a delectable Jeremy Webb) at his beck and call. The portly John Robert Tillotson and the slender Arnie Burton are particularly hilarious when, as Heminge and Condell, they demonstrate over- the-top acting such as Hamlet warns his players against. Grace Conglewski is fine as Will's wife, who disguises herself as a London whore in hopes of winning her husband back to her bed.
