How do you kick off a new season with a brand new artistic director at a venerable New Jersey theatre? You rip the doors off with “A Gentleman’s Guide to Love and Murder” now at Shakespeare Theatre of New Jersey, through June 9 and it’s a HOT ticket!
The show is pure melodrama based on a book that likely would have been a graphic novel, if those had existed in the early 1900s. Based on Roy Horniman’s purely fictional “Israel Rank: The Autobiography of a Criminal”, the work was first adapted as “Kind Hearts and Coronets” with Sir Alec Guinness. In 2012, the show began its journey as a musical and now we have a dark confection where everything is gleefully a half bubble off plumb. If you’ve ever had feverish what-ifs cross your febrile mind, then this show is definitely for you.
We meet Monty Navarro (Miles Jacoby) immediately after his mother’s funeral service when her old friend Miss Shingle (Lauren Cohn) comes to pay her respects. She drops a bomb that Monty is descended from royalty, the D’Ysquiths in fact, and the ball of yarn begins to unravel. Monty has eight heirs in front of him and he wants to dispatch the D’Ysquiths with, um, all possible dispatch to get to the goal. If this sounds like Mario Brothers meets Addams Family, then you’re tracking.
Christopher Sutton plays all of the benighted D’Ysquiths and he is a joy to behold. Early on, you see that like the Habsburgs had their lip, the D’Ysquiths have their face. One face. Seriously. Eight heirs and each a character! Monty is in love with the louche heartthrob Sibella Hallward (Claire Leyden) who should perhaps be surname’d “Wayward” as her constancy is not-stancy. Sharp readers will note that Claire Leyden also appeared in the recent opera “The Extinctionist” and this role is very different. Sibella is a b-a-a-a-d girl and she’s SO good at it! Monty also falls for distant cousin Phoebe D’Ysquith (Eryn LeCroy) who is sweetness and light, yet also an iron fist in a velvet glove. Monty leans in on both his love life and his mission and the farce with two doors and one Monty must be seen. Oh those Edwardians!
The ensemble is at once Greek Chorus and a host of characters including Javier Alfonso Castellanos, Bobby Cook Gallagher, Francesca Mehrotra, James Conrad Smith, Kayla Ryan Walsh and Katie Zaffrann. They clue us in on important aspects, form a gallery of family portraits, become various characters and engage the audience with pulse-quickening movement. There is no small role in this show and there is big talent in every member of the cast, many of whom are new to the company but sure to return.
There are more twists and turns than a roller coaster, especially when you imagine a steampunk roller coaster with a dark, dank history and a letter in a hidden trunk. Life could be a dream, but being a D’Ysquith may not be good for your health.
Get your tickets now for your choice of shows through June 9 so hurry! Celebrate Spring and family (!) with this clever laugh-out-loud sensation. Visit www.ShakespeareNJ.org now or suffer FOMO forever.