For courtiers of de Vere's ilk, licentiousness might have been deemed a permissible pastime, but ambitions of a literary sort -- especially dramaturgical -- would have required subterfuge, under penalty of social exile. Freed quickly sketches the low level of drama prevalent at the time (with commedia-style skits that inevitably devolve into puerile jokes about ``sausages"). Until he hit upon the idea of having a front -- a ``beard" -- libertinism would have been de Vere's only available creative outlet.
Harris plays de Vere like the Jagger of his day. He's pansexual catnip, and a semi-sociopathic indifference only adds to his allure. The character of Will Shakspere, in contrast, embodies a bumbling, earnest desire to please. And in this equally central role, Ian Kahn is adept at conveying an amateur's ardor as well as the sporadic raptures that have this near-illiterate bumpkin suddenly spouting poetry.
While employing the headlong rhythms and elaborate metaphors appropriate to the time, Freed sneaks in all sorts of contemporary allusions (``I have a most pernicious deficit of my attention's ordering," confesses Will). If inserted subtly, without too pronounced a wink, the pop-culture references add a level of meta-delight. Still, the play as a whole is a delicate confection, and it takes a deft hand -- here, that of director Russ Treyz -- to keep its various conceits aloft.
Harris and Kahn are abetted at every turn by a talented company. As Anne Hathaway, Shakspeare's wife, Grace Gonglewski is equally effective as a raw-elbowed, resentful housewife and the bawd she becomes in hopes of luring back her errant husband. Her voice, subtly calibrated to suggest shifts in caste as well as emotion, is a marvel.
Jeremy Webb is touching as de Vere's faithful-in-his-fashion boy toy, the Earl of Derby. Andy Phelan shines as a transvestite ingenue, and Arnie Burton subversively charms in a trio of roles, especially that of typical, self-mythologizing thespian. If Juliet Mills's Queen Elizabeth is a bit wan, it's really not much of a part, as written -- more a device to suggest a panoply of putative authorships.
The pacing is brisk, the interpretation incisive. If other stagings of this play have left you cold (it has been a popular option among regional theatres ever since its 2001 debut at California's South Coast Repertory), give it another go. This production comes up fresh and provocative.
