Shakespeare + gunpowder = illuminating ‘Equivocation’

Layered new comedy-drama explores truth and history

BY MICHAEL SOMMERS

NEWJERSEYNEWSROOM.COM

OFF BROADWAY REVIEW

Mix up Shakespeare with the Gunpowder Plot of 1605, add in tasty personages such as King James I and Richard Burbage, blend in a thoughtful moral argument, season it all with some laughs and shocks and you've got "Equivocation," a meaty new play by Bill Cain.

Done to a turn by a lively company of actors, "Equivocation" opened Tuesday in a Manhattan Theatre Club production at New York City Center. This rich, ambitious comedy-drama does not achieve all it sets out to do, but nevertheless remains engrossing theater.

Set in 1606 London, Cain's twisty story sees Shakespeare commissioned by King James' government to write a "true" drama (i.e. their version) about a recently foiled terrorist plot to blow up the British royal court and parliament.

Shakespeare's tetchy fellow artists at the Globe, miserably mired in "King Lear" rehearsals ("It can't be learnt!"), question his ability to handle the job just as much as he does ("Give it to Fletcher to write!"). Never before having dramatized current events, the doubtful Shakespeare (known here as "Shag") digs for the evasive truth and unearths a cesspit of lies, corruption and fair-is-foul double talk.

In the process, a masterpiece is forged, people unjustly perish and both Shakespeare and viewers learn "How to speak the truth in difficult times." Parallels can be drawn to our times, of course.

Written mostly in modern-day conversation and performed by six actors doing multiple roles, Cain's fast, multi-layered work possesses an enjoyable Stoppard-like density of historical and literary contents. Parts relating to Shakespeare's troubled ties to his dead son Hamlet and living daughter Judith don't pan out as deeply as they might. But by and large, "Equivocation" offers plenty of stimulating entertainment. (Fans of the Bard are sure to get an extra charge out its inside jokes.)

Of course, viewers have to stay sharp themselves to keep up with the play's instantaneous switches in characters and locations.

Director Garry Hynes ("The Beauty Queen of Leenane") speedily stages the dark story against designer Francis O'Connor's ominous background of rusty metal panels that easily becomes the Globe stage or a Tower dungeon, lit with gloomy effectiveness by David Weiner. Underlining the drama's now-and-then sensibility, O'Connor's costume design mixes modern clothes with 1600s trimmings.

Instantly changing characters, the ensemble is led by John Pankow's intense, melancholy Shakespeare. David Pittu is an especially menacing presence as the all-knowing politico Sir Robert Cecil. Michael Countryman creates an urgent Burbage and quietly transforms into a near-saintly figure as a Jesuit philosopher charged with treason. Whether he portrays a numbskull leading man of the Globe or a jocular and Scots-burred King James, David Furr brings amusing touches of levity to the production.

"Equivocation" continues through March 28 at MTC at City Center, 131 W. 55th St., New York. Call (212) 581-1212 or visit www.nycitycenter.org.