Shakespeare – as we’ve been led to believe he looked – was not a particularly handsome fellow.
If he were around today, you might think he ran a microbrewery or had a job in IT.
You wouldn’t picture Shakespeare as Broadway handsome, like Corey Mach.
Mach plays the Bard of Avon in the national tour of the musical “& Juliet,” which runs at the Cadillac Palace Theatre in downtown Chicago through Sunday, Dec. 15.
“Who knows what he looked like?” Mach said.
While readying for the role, Mach said he did his own research and learned portraits that may be Shakespeare have not been proven to be him, that much of what we think we know about the playwright is conjecture.
Besides, this show’s book is by David West Read, one of the the writers behind the Emmy-winning TV show “Schitt’s Creek.” So Mach says it’s fair to say that the production has that show’s sense of humor – and might have a thing or two in common with “30 Rock.” Going back further, think “The Carol Burnett Show,” “Fractured Fairy Tales,” screwball comedies and the like.
“There are a lot of (pop culture) references,” Mach said. “And it’s so funny. As an actor, I don’t have to work that hard because the script is just funny.”
“& Juliet” is a jukebox musical, to boot, featuring decades of megapop hits penned by Swedish, possible ABBA offspring, songsmith Max Martin. Those include Britney Spears’s “…Baby One More Time,” Bon Jovi’s “It’s My Life” and The Backstreet Boys’ “I Want It That Way.”
While that may seem an odd juxtaposition, Mach said both Shakespeare and Martin are pop icons of their times. Come to think of it, not a lot of people know what Martin looks like either.
“The show takes three decades of hits and presents them in a fresh way. That can be beautiful, and it can be freaking hilarious,” Mach said.
“& Juliet” opens with Shakespeare and company singing “Larger Than Life,” a hit Martin wrote for the Backstreet Boys and their 1999 album, “Millennium.” That makes playing Shakespeare in the musical a fun time for Mach, as he was a big fan of that album back when he was a kid.
As for the show’s plot, Mach agreed that it’s “meta” in that it’s a play about the making of a play. That’s to say it imagines Shakespeare and his wife, Anne Hathaway, working on an alternative version of “Romeo and Juliet.”
(Writer’s note: After all, in the classic, Juliet is just 13 years old! Eew. Plus, it’s almost a comedy of errors. Juliet fakes her death. Romeo doesn’t get the note that she intended for him, this so they can run off together. He sees her in a drug-induced coma and thinks she’s actually dead. So Romeo kills himself. Then Juliet wakes up, but is so distraught she kills herself, too. And somehow the two senseless deaths bring their feuding families to call a truce. Ugh!)
In “& Juliet” the new version is being constructed right before the audience’s eyes, Mach said. Adding to the meta theatricality of it all, before the play actually begins actors mull about the stage and theater as they ready things for the performance, Mach said.
Oh. Everybody also has an American accent, including Shakespeare. Oh, Mary, it doesn’t take itself too seriously.
“It’s a fun and funny show that’s 100% there for people to enjoy themselves. It’s very loosely based on Shakespeare, and you don’t really need to know anything about him to have a good time seeing it. Plus, there’s all that great music,” Mach said.
