Here’s a tasty little treat for all you Elizabethan-Jacobean tragedy lover’s out there – the tragedy element generously leavened with comedy. The theatrical sundae with maraschino cherry on top is the revival of Arden of Faversham.
What’s that you say? Never heard of it? Neither had this unwoke reviewer until Red Bull artistic director Jesse Berger, he of the compulsive archives digging, announced it for Lucille Lortel production.
Okay, there are those quite familiar with earlier theater annals than yours truly thought he was. Many of them have not only read the play and debated about it, but they’ve read and reread it to decide who wrote it or, rather, who wrote what in it.
You see, the earliest anyone seems to know of Arden of Faversham is 1592, when it was published with no accompanying name. Forgetfulness? Embarrassment? Compulsive anonymity? Publisher’s lapse? Who can say?
Even then, the usual speculation arose about the usual author suspects – Thomas Kyd, Christopher Marlowe, and, needless to say, William Shakespeare himself. Or possibly, the mavens figured, the mysterious work had been co-authored by two or more of the above. Or maybe John Ford.
Shakespeare is as good a guess as any and not just because some of the iambic pentameter and free verse sounds as if it might be his. As some historians have it, Shakespeare’s whereabouts between 1585 and 1592 are sketchy. Perhaps he was off quilling what’s also been cited as Arden of Feversham, along with other numbers he was happy to put his name to.
Where do I stand on this matter, one of the more obscure concerns of our day? I think many speculators are always attempting to add to the Shakespeare canon, but I’m not about to join them. I’d rather simply enjoy how Jeffrey Hatcher and Kathryn Talat have adapted those possible whomevers of yestercentury.
To begin, instead of labeling it a tragedy, a comedy, a history. or a romance – the usual Shakespeare niches – co-conspirators Hatcher and Walat have opted for a different and extremely enticing category: “a true crime thriller.”
Their explanation? The tale told is based on a crime making headlines then: an adulterous high-born wife wanting to mate with her steward/former tailor lover had schemed to have her landowner husband murdered but was foiled in the attempt. (Shakespeare habitually resorted to headlines but never as recent as these were. Does that rule him out?)
So, herein lies hot stuff. All the earlier whoevers — and now Hatcher and Walat — introduce Alice (Cara Ricketts) doing whatever she can to rid herself of older and burly Arden (Thomas Jay Ryan) so’s to sidle away with handsome and gleefully conniving Mosby (Tony Roach).
To make Arden a sadly deceased and mockingly mourned landlord, scheming Alice also enlists Mosby’s sister and her maid Susan (Emma Geer) — as well as Arden aide Michael (Zachery Fine) — to enlarge the crowd primed to off the unsuspecting head of the troubled house.
Giving Lady Macbeth a run for her money, Alice further recruits Widow Green (Veronica Falcón), a tenant farmer’s wife with a complaint to lodge, and hired hitmen Big Will (David Ryan Smith) and Shakebag (Haynes Thigpen) for inserting Arden six feet under. (Some Shakespeare backers point to the “Will” in “Big Will” and the “Shake” in “Shakebag” as the Bard puckishly signing his contribution. Whatever.)
Any more wannabe killers on the hunt, you ask? Watch painter Clarke (Joshua David Robinson), a second Susan swain who knows about painter’s toxic oils. But certainly not Franklin (Thom Sesma), a loyal Arden pal, whose love may cross the line to something more. Leastways, his fate is the one to keep an eye on.
So, there you are. Hatcher and Walat can take credit for an adaptation that again has all the plotters on the loose. As incidents transpire, their contemporary take has the effect of both tragedy and comedy. Just for starters, the first attempt on Ardern’s life consists of poisoned porridge. The wronged hubby merely gets a tummy ache.
Eventually, however, there are corpses in the plural. Is one of them the intended Arden? No spoiler(s) here, except to say that while the gang marauding was unfolding, I thought Hatcher and Walat might have intended to have their fun at the expense of the original manuscript. I wondered if they were going to arrange it so that the English countryside would be strewn with everyone but Arden.
Did they? Guess. What they have done with their Arden of Faversham, absolutely does not pun theatrically on the “sham” of “Faversham.” No sham here. Rather, Hatcher and Walat unquestionably provide a pleasantly bloody romp.
In front of Christopher Swader and Justin Swader’s set depicting a manor house room with daunting fireplace and under Reza Behjat’s lighting frequently meant to indicate other locales, the cast members speak the speeches trippingly enough on the tongue. They give the convincing impression that they’re all — as director Berger has clearly asked of them — having a bloody good time.
In short, the Red Bull presentation is a welcome opportunity to see Arden of Faversham. Indeed, it may be the only opportunity to see it in this lifetime. If that isn’t a strong enough incentive, I’d like to know what is.
Arden of Faversham opened March 16, 2023, at the Lortel Theatre and runs through April 1. Tickets and information: redbulltheater.com
