REVIEW: SOMETHING ROTTEN!—Rose Center Theater
- TheShowReport
- Jun 30
- 5 min read
Updated: Jul 1
It's the 16th century. You’re in London, and life is good...
if you are Shakespeare.
If you’re not, you are most likely struggling to keep your theatre company afloat. Then your world pretty much stinks. Especially when Billie Boy steals your stuff. But here, Will Shakespeare is a Rock Star and whatever he writes is gold, and whatever he wants is granted.
Everybody loves the leather-clad pride of Stratford-upon-Avon sex-god himself, narcissism and all. That pearly smile, those swiveling hips, that curious fascination with bright shiny objects — especially the female sort.
It’s all in service to a story that’s as deft as it is daft: Brothers Nick (Jacob Phelen) and Nigel Bottom (Jeremy Kie Vance) are trying to make a living as playwrights in Elizabethan England, but their rival (known affectionately as “The Bard” — Brennan Eckberg) is churning out all the hits and all the glory. Will is a flamboyant and stupendously successful writer with a leather doublet, killer abs, and a cocky smile. He knows he’s the best there is, and shows off by giving extravagant parties and poetry readings, complete with colored lights and pyrotechnics! He also, however, has an annoying habit of stealing lines and ideas from other writers.
Both the Bottom brothers secretly envy Shakespeare; Nick for his money and success, Nigel for his skill at writing beautiful poetry. Nick worries how to make a living as a playwright, especially since he is also supporting his brother and his wife Beatrice (played excellently by Tawni Bridenball). Nick doesn’t want his wife to have to work for him, especially since it's illegal, but he can’t get out from under Shakespeare’s shadow.
Bea urges him not to worry and assures him that she is strong enough to get a job and help ease the burden of supporting his family (“Right Hand Man” — a wonderful satire of contemporary gender politics). Surely, with a town full of Puritans, proto-feminists, money lenders and foppish noblemen, she can find a job somewhere. “It’s 1595,” Bea tells her husband, “and we have a woman on the throne. By 1600 a woman will be exactly as equal as a man.”
Desperate to turn his luck around, Nick visits a soothsayer (Chris Caputo as a wild-eyed Thomas Nostradamus), looking to steal aesthetic foe William’s best future idea for a play, who informs him that the most popular form of entertainment in the future will be something called a “musical,” and Shakespeare’s most famous play will be a musical entitled …”Omelette.” With that revelation, Bottom then becomes convinced that he will create the next great new musical that will rival Shakespeare’s plays in popularity, and is depending on his brother to write it. He now imagines that, finally for once, “Bottom’s Gonna Be on Top!”
Nigel’s only real challenge is that he is an idealistic romantic and views life through a fairytale-like lens, having recently been influenced by his newfound love for Portia (Olivia Aniceto). Her father, Brother Jeremiah (Vince Aniceto), is a zealous Puritan (and, from his constant barrage of hate rhetoric that ends with a funny sexual twist, perhaps a closet homosexual to boot). Jeremiah despises theater, and so the pair secretly meet to allow their love to blossom (“We See the Light,” which turns from tender Elizabethan ballad into a catchy Gospel tune).
There’s also a bona-fide showstopper in the middle of the first act (called, naturally enough, “A Musical”) that references a score of shows and composers ranging from “A Chorus Line” to “West Side Story” to the Gershwins to Rice and Webber. A working knowledge of the genre will help you catch the fusillade of in-jokes, but the number surfs on a wave of energy all its own. Recognizing those references (amid uncontrollable laughter) is the most work you’ll have to do in SOMETHING ROTTEN!, unless you count trying to catch your breath at the show’s nearly unrelenting pace.
Jacob Phelen brings a twitchy, Nathan Lane-y vibe to Nick. Mr. Eckberg’s Shakespeare is, of course, always in perpetual motion and delightfully obsessed with his own fabulousness. Both were more than able to lead a company so committed to scenery chewing that it’s a wonder there was a scrap of the set remaining at the end of the night. Mr. Aniceto's Brother Jeremiah is the stern, deeply repressed pietist who attempts to shield his daughter from corrupting influences, and rapidly on the cusp of locking her up at night. Ms. Aniceto's Portia is passionate, adorable and sometimes a little quirky. Younger brother Nigel (Mr. Vance), assumes a somewhat naïve posture and a sensitive heart, and Mr. Caputo’s Nostradamus is a loopy, eccentric mystic who makes vague, nonsensical, hilarious predictions, and who looks like he just came home from a CATS rehearsal.
Fashioned in the mold of a Monty Python classic, it might be the funniest, splashiest, slap-happiest musical comedy you may ever see. With its deliciously puerile gags and an infectious love of the absurd, SOMETHING ROTTEN! is not only tuneful and sneaky-smart, it’s inescapably entertaining.
There is not room for one more note, one more reference to a Broadway musical, one more historical factoid, one more nod to Shakespeare, one more word or gesture or even breath. We waddle out of the theatre stuffed, loaded to the gills with upbeat ditties, tap-dancing duels, encores, reprises, tomfoolery and double entendres that’s guaranteed to make your whole body ache from all the giggles.
ROSE CENTER THEATER PRESENTS, SOMETHING ROTTEN! IT’S A MUSICAL; Conceived by WAYNE & KAREY KIRKPATRICK; Book by KAREY KIRKPATRICK & JOHN O’FARRELL; Music & Lyrics by WAYNE KIRKPATRICK & KAREY KIRKPATRICK; Directed and Musically Directed by TIM NELSON; Choreographed by JENNIFER SIMPSON-MATTHEWS & DIANE MAKAS; Technical Direction/Scenic, Lighting & Projection Design by CHRIS CAPUTO; Costumes by CAROLE ZELINGER; Wigs by CLIFF SENIOR; Props by SHERRE TITUS; Stage Managers DAVID ELLIOTT & LANDON MARIANO; Asst Stage Manager KRISTIN CAPUTO.
STARRING: JACOB PHELEN; JEREMY KIE VANCE; BRENNAN ECKBERG; TAWNI BRIDENBALL; OLIVIA ANICETO; CHRIS CAPUTO.
FEATURING: VINCENT ANICETO; TOM ORR; RANDALL J. GODDARD; CATHERINE DOSIER; JILLIAN MATTHEWS; COLETTE PETERS; NATHAN WILLINGHAM; BEN TIETZ; ANDREW BROOME; JEFFREY A. JOHNS; SEAN OWER; ERIC LEMPINEN.
WITH: NATHAN ANDREAS, CHERIE ANICETO; SANDRA ANICETO; SOFIA ANICETO; JAYLEN BAILEY; HARPER BALFANY; TAVEN BLANKE; MATTHEW CANDELA; KRISTEN CAPUTO; AVA CERAMI; ELLA CERAMI; ADDISON CHANG; KYLIE CHRISTENSEN; ELLA COLLINS; ETHAN DELA MOTTA; NICHOLAS ERISTAVI; HANNAH FAN; COLE FRAUSTO; KELLI GRIFFIN; JOLYNN HALLUM; GINA HIGGINBOTHAM; ETHAN HORNER; DR. DAVID HUBBARD; KYLEAH JACKSON; SCOTT JUHL; KATIE LEAHY; ALYSSA MANZANARES; JOSH MARTINEZ; EVAN MARTORANA; LUKE MARTUCCI; KYLIE MATTHEWS; SAVANNA MATTHEWS; JEFF MEMPIN; HAILEY MILLER; ALYSSA PHELEN; BRETT POPIEL; JOSH PROTZMANN; HAILEY RIBAR; ALANA RUHE; LILY RUPE; MADELINE RUPE; NATALIE SAND; MARJORIE STEMMLER; PUNAWAI TIETZ; SERAPHINE TRAN; KARIN WILLIAMS; SOPHIAGRACE WILLIAMS; CAMERON WYNN; NARUMI YUZAWA.
SOMETHING ROTTEN! Runs from June 27th through July 20th, 2025. Performances are Fridays & Saturdays at 7:30PM and Sundays at 2:00PM. For Tickets, see www.rosecentertheater.com/tickets
Chris Daniels
Arts & Entertainment Reviewer
The Show Report
Photo Credit: Rose Center Theater, Ryan Salazar @rosecentertheater @ryansalazar
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