Using those of Shakespeare’s works in which love’s course does not in some way “run smooth,” In Love With Shakespeare consists of fully staged scenes from Midsummer’s Night’s Dream, Taming of the Shrew, Romeo and Juliet, and Richard III. In three of these plays, the romantic pairs aren’t as compatible—at least until the denouements—as the titled lovers in Romeo and Juliet.
Diane Cepeda, aptly made up as and interpreting Puck as a creature of darkish mischief, introduces the show with prologue from Midsummer’s Night’s Dream. (She’s not again seen until she delivers the epilogue.) The forest setting accords with The Players’s temporary location outdoors in a side part of a market place. Here the stage is backed by a wall, painted with intertwined leaves, with two entrance-exits reminiscent of period historic mansions. (Now all the current virus-aware, negative-tested audience is in “the pit” but masked and in socially distanced, sanitized chairs and blankets.)
The opening of Taming of the Shrew goes from well cast Charlie Taylor’s Baptista, despondent over his daughter Katherine’s repelling of suitors, to Petruchio, who’s “come to wive it wealthily in Padua.” Carrie McQueen emphasizes Katherine’s strength and resistance. That appears as a real challenge to Jim Floyd’s Petruchio, who may be persistent but does not at this point seem attracted to a woman, even for her dowry. The two actors melt, though, when they next appear as Shakespeare’s iconic young lovers, who’re absolutely mad about each other, though their mating will end in tragedy.
Michele Strauss, who has supplied an Off-stage Voice in Romeo and Juliet, is silently mourning onstage as Lady Anne over the coffin of her recently murdered husband when the title character of Richard III seeks her out. Jim Floyd gives the best of his three hearty performances as the hunchbacked villain who has a winning way with flattery. Pretty Strauss nicely takes her time being seduced and manages to make her change toward Richard plausible. Floyd has emphasized Richard’s smooth persuasiveness and appeal to Anne’s vanity.
Though Elliot Raines never before directed a play by Shakespeare, it’s obvious here that he’s studied, seen, and probably acted in The Bard’s works. His choices of theme and selection of scenes are creative. Since the pandemic deprived him of a few members of his originally chosen cast, he has been blessed by the cooperation of actors who doubled in acting and crews who did technical work. Donna DeFant, as usual at The Players, proved of marked assistance to Raines.
A highlight of the presentation is Georgiana Wilmott’s array of detailed, characterizing costumes. Ken Junkins’s set makes abundant use of movable props. Thanks to Matt Neier and John Underman, everything can be easily seen and heard.
As The Players’s artistic director Jeffrey Kin wisely told the audience on opening night, the important thing about his theater’s work is not its place but its people. If applause was a wee bit muted, it was only because on Sarasota’s coldest recent night, audience hands were gloved.
