Irving Community Theater (aka Mainstage Irving) mounted a frenetic production of Shakespeare in Hollywood, but with a Ken Ludwig (Lend Me a Tenor, Moon Over Buffalo, Crazy For You)play, what other kind of production could there be? The farce, commissioned by the Royal Shakespeare Company, had its world premiere in 2003 at the Arena Stage in Washington, D.C. and won the Helen Hayes Award as Best New Play of the Year.
The year is 1934, and renowned director Max Reinhardt (Jason Kane) is staging a production of A Midsummer Night's Dream for Warner Brothers. Shakespeare productions were not well received and usually were cast with the wives or mistresses of the producer or director who wanted the prestige of appearing in a Shakespeare play.
Shakespeare in Hollywood, like many of Ludwig's plays, is a backstage comedy. Inhabiting the stage are Oberon (Shane Hamlin) and Puck (Jill Ethridge) who really want to be in a movie. We also meet Reinhardt's nemesis, Will Hayes (Craig Boleman), entrusted with enforcing the Hays Code (of decency) established by the Motion Picture Producers and Distributors of America, Studio head Jack Warner's mistress, Lydia Lansing (Lindsay Hayward), and his erstwhile assistant, Daryl (Travis Ponikewski). Also appearing are some familiar Hollywood icons such as gossip columnist Louella Parsons (Nancy Ewing Friedman), Jimmy Cagney (Bolt Harvey), comic actor Joe E. Brown (Clayton Cunningham) and leading man Dick Powell (Rick Powers).
Director Harry Friedman has staged an excellent production and assembled a universally talented cast with some outstanding performances: Lindsay Hayward as Lydia, Warner's mistress, is reminiscent of a young Judy Holiday; Jason Kane as legendary director Max Reinhardt is steadfast and comically blusterous in his refusal to acquiesce to Hays' code of decency; Craig Boleman as Will Hays is comic in his serious demeanor to attempt to get Reinhardt to clean up A Midsummer Night's Dream; Jill Ethridge as Puck could almost rival Mary Martin in Peter Pan with her sprightly energy; Nancy Ewing Friedman is a comic delight in her cameo role as the intrusive gossip columnist Louella Parsons, and Travis Ponikiewski as Warner's assistant, Daryl, possesses a comic stage presence, as he did in last season's The Last Night of Ballyhoo, which portends a successful future on the stage.
