In the Venn diagram of giddy fandom, a surprisingly large number of Lebowskiphiles and Shakespeare lovers overlap. In “Two Gentleman of Lebowski“, the Horse Trade Theater Group and MTheatrics have created an unparalleled production of the Coen brothers’ smash hit rewritten in Shakespearean dialect.
From its humble beginnings as a writing exercise, the play has achieved viral fame and cult Internet status—it has instantly become one of New York’s most fiercely beloved indie productions. Think of it as “Shakespeare with Balls,” something akin to being in on two jokes at once, fed through a schizophrenic time machine.
A recognizable soundtrack hummed by the entire cast introduces a minimalist set and an authentic, darling (if a tad overenthusiastic) Shakespearean Lebowski: “the Knave… His Knaveness… Knaver… mayhap El Knaverino.”
Adam Bertocci’s brilliantly-crafted script is not only replete with Shakespearean wit, film-geek puns and general hilarity, but temporal oddities as well. Director Frank Cwiklik and his creative team successfully complement this universe of cars and carriages with an anachronistic collage of costumes, props and dance sequences. In the style of a functional B-film, the low-budget production is happy chaos on a small stage. The nihilists scream horrifyingly and Lebowski is ducked into a hybrid of toilet and chamber pot; a steampunk basin bathtub ferret attack follows later.
The costumes—a Pilgrim suit, a fishing vest over a Missionary shirt, a trench coat, ruffles, sneakers—reflect a seemingly random scrimmage of many time periods. Lebowski himself looks like a haphazard time traveler, ill-prepared for any decade with his signature retired-hippie pajama-esque shirt and pants covered by a nouveau-Medieval jacket. All the madness seems deliberate until a Groucho Marx doctor appears, throwing the play into Andy Kaufman territory.
And somehow it wholly works, dance sequences and all, to the credit of the quirky cast. The Shakespearean lines are emotively delivered, Bonnie Lebowski prances like a forest nymph mid-striptease, Sir Donald’s wrath is epic as he waves a plastic sword, and the nihilists are still insane and frightening, even as they sashay and pirouette in unison across the stage. When Maude Lebowski reveals her twit stepmother’s past as an erotic actress, “Log Jamming” is recreated by her attendants as a play within the play. Metatextual, humbly self-referencing, and side-splittingly silly—this is one of the play’s most conceptual scenes, as well as its funniest.
In under two hours, “Two Gentlemen of Lebowski” proves that Shakespearian sharp-tongued eloquence is nifty even in the 21st century, if wielded correctly. The play also showed that the Coen brothers’ epic was quite Shakespearean to begin with. Familial tension, royal betrayal, and ill-fated dames and heroes grappling with morality are always a hit, whether they’re placed in the context of sipping White Russians in a slick Hollywood production, mashing time into a pulp on the Internet, or emulating B-movie madness in a small New York City production. They’re just particularly funny at the Kraine Theater where the Knave abides.
Comments | Posted on March 29, 2010 | Categories: From the Blog
