Something Rotten

I sprang for last-minute premium tickets to see Something Rotten.  It was fun, and I kept thinking that my friend Kris would really appreciate the actor who played The Bard.  The pop culture references (to other musicals and to lines from Shakespeare) come thick and furious, allowing audience members to pat themselves on the back for the references they catch, while recognizing that there were still more that likely passed them by.  It felt like a production that wanted very much to be entertaining (and it was - seemingly for the actors as well as the audience) and to be thought clever and modern. The feminist schtick was introduced in a cute way - the wife of the elder Bottom brother sings that she wants to be her husband's right-hand man, and she talks about how women can get jobs now, since it's the Nineties (haha) and there's a woman on the throne.  She speculates that there will be full equality by the year 1600.  The Big Ideas of the production seem to be something along the lines of: (1) Folks in the Renaissance, they're just like us!  (in that they love novelty, etc.) (2) Shakespeare was a rock star.  (3) Shakespeare totally stole all his ideas and all his good lines.