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‘Thee and Thou’ premiere succeeds as brisk comedy

An original script by Bret Jones gave a good comic spin to Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre

and the tendency of the theater world to overdo it in general Thursday at Jewel Box

Theatre.

The play not only made the rehearsal of a tragedy play a comedy but exploited

mistaken identity, with the real Will and the fake Shakespeare exchanging dueling

couplets in its hilarious finale.

Called "Thee and Thou” and set at William Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre in 1599, the

wonderfully wacky backstage drama was given a rousing performance by the ninemember

Jewel Box cast.

Jon Haque offered a robust, intentionally exaggerated depiction of Richard Burbage,

the Globe’s landlord, constantly battling his poet-in-residence, Shakespeare, over the

artistic direction of the company.

Wearing no breeches, to dramatize his preference for tragedy over comedy, Haque

nearly stole the show in his Elisabethan underwear, especially when the wardrobe

mistress tried to make him put on short pants.

Joshua Cain was just forceful yet flaky enough as Shakespeare, who isn’t interested in

romantic entanglements and suffers not from writer’s block but the inability to quit

making up couplets.

Much less complex were the motives and couplets of Bryan Whorton as a thief who

impersonates Shakespeare after fleeing into the theater to save himself, then falls for

the Bard’s ex-girlfriend, Agnes.

Danielle Coody got across the romantic intensity and comic confusion of Agnes when

she finds herself suddenly no longer spurned by the fleeing highwayman she thinks is

Shakespeare.

Charlotte Rose was delightfully down-to-earth and untheatrical as the costume lady,

slowly succumbing to Shawn Hicks as Will Slye, even when she knows his poetic

praises were written by Shakespeare.

Marcus Wade gave a well-rounded performance and added another romantic angle as

John Heminges, who courts the company’s prim new girl, Bess, convincingly played by

Heidi Wallace.

J. Aaron Chartier had one of the play’s funniest moments as the highwayman’s young

henchman, Alex, who impresses the company with his death scene — because he’s

really been wounded, outside the theatre.

A resident of Wichita, Kan., Jones describes his play in program notes as "a love letter

to Shakespeare and his gang” that attempts to reclaim him as a man of the stage from

academic over-analysis.

In these terms, the new script succeeds very well in the briskly paced Jewel Box world

premiere production directed by Don Taylor and requiring only minimal props and

period costumes.

— John Brandenburg

Published: January 26, 2009