Something not-so-Rotten!

Troy’s Department of Theatre and Dance put on its production of “Something Rotten!,” but the experience of watching was quite the opposite. 

“Something Rotten!” is a 2015 play set in Renaissance 1595, following the story of the brothers Nick and Nigel Bottom as they invent a new, musical form of theatre to compete with William Shakespeare’s comedies and tragedies.  

If you can’t tell by the trope of a musical about a musical, this production is extremely meta and self-referential, not enough to be unbearable, but enough to make you roll your eyes every now and then. I just so happen to enjoy that kind of comedy, and this piece doesn’t overdo it. 

The opening is nothing special; the entire cast opens the show by welcoming the viewer. It’s big and dramatic and the singing sounds good and loud, which is exactly what you’d expect from a typical musical. 

The next scene we meet out main-character brothers. Reese Lemaster does a wonderful job of portraying Nick Bottom as a crazy, loud, ambitious frontman, and Stephen Shropshire really sells the viewer on Nigel’s more reserved, nervous demeanor. A few clever, timely renaissance jokes and a good bit of singing from Lemaster in “God, I Hate Shakespeare” start the play off well. 

In the next scene, Kate Simechak does a lovely caricature of a stereotypical Jewish man that is frankly hilarious, not because of how it’s written, but how well it’s performed. 

We have another wonderful vocal showing after that from Adie Carter as Bea in the "Right Hand Man,” which is made even better by the character’s jokes centered in female empowerment and hilariously aggressive attempts at stomping gender roles. 

Then we meet Nostradamus, played by Darius Cabell, who crushes the comedic timing of the scene and creates several satirical references to other musicals. Sadly, the musical number about the creation of a musical runs a little long, and near the end of the scene I was ready to move on. 

The next scene featured some good dialog but was nothing special, aside from the random sick person walking through the street that kept cracking the audience up. 

“The Black Death” is a wonderfully happy song about the most terrible plague in human history, and I loved it for that. The best song of the play to that point and the end of the scene saw some hilarious lines from John Ingram as the puritan, Jeremiah. 

Next up, we see Portia, Jeremiah’s daughter, played by Olivia Szymanski, and Nigel share the most sickeningly awkward and unbearable falling-in-love scene that proves Shropshire and Szymanski’s acting skills because somehow, neither of them broke the whole time. Their voices both shine in a major way in their song “I Love the Way” as well. 

Then, we finally meet Shakespeare, played by Bea Barier, who is incredibly entertaining to watch because of the ego and sass that emits from the character. However, the song “Will Power” is the only song of the whole play that I flat out did not enjoy, but 1 annoying song out of 21 isn’t bad at all and of course the performers had no control over writing the song, Barrier’s performance was great. 

A few more story-driven scenes go by and we are at intermission, followed by a redemption song for Shakespeare in “Hard to be the Bard.” Barrier’s voice gets more of a spotlight in this spot (as it should) and the song is very funny. The feather joke remains one of the best of the show. 

The best parts of the next scene are the abundance of “Cats” references by Nostradamus and the dancing eggs running across the stage. 

Then we see probably the best spot of singing in the entire show put on by Shropshire and Szymanski in “We See the Light” and “Nigel’s Theme.” This comes after their characters' first-time sharing poetry,which comes across more like their first time doing something else because of the blatantly obvious and hilarious sexual innuendos that they throw at the audience. 

The next scene gives us the best, most intense, raw, real acting of the play when the Bottom brothers get into a fight. We see Lemaster master his character’s swift decline into near insanity and Shropshire give the most emotional, aggressive performance of the night. 

This is followed by more of Carter’s beautiful singing as Bea, attempting to mend the relationship of the brothers through a reprise of “Right Hand Man.” 

The final scenes are close the musical out perfectly with some of the best songs of the play and the entire cast on top of their vocal game, and a pretty satisfying ending the incredibly strange story of “Something Rotten!” 

Some other miscellaneous highlights: Andrew Stanfield as both Lord Clapham and the judge making the audience laugh every time he took the stage, Devin Caster as Robin, the constant sexual references through the entire play, and Carter’s Bea popping up randomly dressed as men. 

If anything, what’s holding this production back from being even better is the play itself, which was mostly good but had a few holes. 

Overall, this production gets an 8.7/10 and students can go see it from April 16-18 at 7 pm in the Trojan Center Theatre.