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A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court
Adapted for the stage by Margaret Raether
Based on Mark Twain’s novel
Directed by Alison C. Vesely
At First Folio Shakespeare Festival
Mayslake Peabody Estate
31st St. & Rt 83
Oakbrook, IL
Call 630-986-8067, tickets $17
Wednesdays & Fridays at 7:30
Saturdays at 3 & 7:30 PM
Sundays at 3 PM
Running time 90 minutes with no intermission
Through December 18, 2005
Twain’s updated classic in good hands with First Folio
First Folio Shakespeare Festival initial launch of their Family Classics series features a delightful, hilarious production of Mark Twain’s A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court.
This production showcases the amazingly appealing and utterly boyishly charming Michael Patrick Sullivan who stared in A Clock work Orange in 2004 for Defiant Theatre. Sullivan’s disarmingly cute boy next door persona works excellently as Hank, the college student who gets knocked out playing pick-up basketball only to wake up in 6th Century England in Camelot at King Arthur’s court. Sullivan narrates and participates in the dream induced fable.
Margaret Raether’s hip update deftly connects us with Hank and smoothly lays the basis for the cute comic spoof of the English roundtable myth. Sullivan is so likeable we instantly empathize with his plight as the knights of Arthur’s Court led by the evil Mordred (Robert Brady) and the sorcerer Merlin (Donald Brearley) attempt to have him killed as a devil. Clarence (in a funny turn from Robert Allan Smith) is the servant turned friend to Hank and Lady Alisande (Carrie Corrigan) emerges as Hank’s love interest.
Raether’s funny adaptation is rich in Mel Brooks-style humor and this cast exudes every funny line, retort, sight gag, pratfall and wordplay. This is a witty, smart, often zany show that doesn’t take itself seriously. Michael Patrick Sullivan’s energy, looseness and comic timing was superb. He beautifully sets up the veteran Shakespearian talent to produce enough laughs to tickle the heart.
Twain’s classic morality tale easily works with a 21st Century update. It is an excellent family show that moves along swiftly and works well on the small Peabody Estate stage. Director Alison C. Vesely’s clever staging and blocking and quick pacing adds fuel to the wacky comic scenes. This is a funny show.
Christian Gray’s King Arthur was a hoot and together with Sullivan team up to carry the spoof home marvelously. You’d be hard pressed to fine a funnier family show for a $17 ticket price.
Recommended
Tom Williams
Tom99@chicagocritic.com for comments
Chicago Stage Talk Radio Show
This show eligible for a C.S.T. Equity Theatre Award
November 19, 2005
A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court
Review by Joe Stead
So you thought Monty Python had the market cornered on satirizing
the legend of King Arthur? Take a page from Mark Twain's "A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court," update it to the 21st Century with lots of witty anachronisms and a spry leading performance and you have a lighthearted 90-minute trifle. Which is precisely what Oakbrook's First Folio Shakespeare Festival has achieved in its new indoor Family Classics series.
Many summer theatergoers will be familiar with First Folio's annual "picnic with the Bard" presentations at the quaint Peabody Estate mansion. Approaching their 10th anniversary with Margaret Raether's often charming one-act in the modest but cozy Tudor-style library finds the company in good standing. No, you won't get Broadway priced razzle-dazzle for your $17, and the rudimentary set and lighting may strike fear in the hearts of some experienced audience members. But a pleasant family-friendly treat awaits those who give this little troupe a shot.
Twain's short novel has been filmed several times with stars ranging from
Will Rogers and Bing Crosby to Boris Karloff, and musical theatre devotees may remember Rodgers and Hart's musicalization which introduced such standards as "Thou Swell" and "My Heart Stood Still." Much of the charm of First Folio's adaptation lies in the brash and winning performance of young Michael Patrick Sullivan as a time-traveling youth who gets knocked on the head and wakes up to find himself in the medieval court of Camelot. Sullivan is such a delightful interloper, with a sassy energy and boyish buoyancy that he makes even the sillier anachronisms seem genuinely witty.
When our hero, Hank (Sullivan) awakens from a basketball injury to the blade of an armored knight, he cunningly insinuates himself into the court of King Arthur (the commanding, deep-voiced Christian Gray), is promptly hailed as a magical demon for his ability to predict a full eclipse, un-foils a plot by the charlatan wizard Merlin and the villainous Mordred to take over Camelot, and naturally becomes smitten with the fair Lady Alisande. He also helps the fairly out-of-touch monarch who is slipping in the public polls regain a sense of democracy for the common folk. All in about an hour and a half.
"A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court" runs through December 18 at Mayslake Peabody Estate, located at 31st Street and Rt. 83, Oak Brook IL.Performances are Wednesdays and Fridays at 7:30 p.m., Saturdays at 3:00 & 7:30 p.m., and Sundays at 3:00 p.m. Tickets are $17 for adults, $12 for children 18 and under. For reservations, call (630) 986-8067. Next up at First Folio is "Private Lives," Noel Coward's effervescently sardonic tale of a couple whose mutual hatred is exceeded only by their mutual passion.
"Private Lives" runs February 15-March 19, 2006.
Recommended
Joe Stead
November 20, 2005
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