Review: Shakespeare's a cowardly thief in Ten Thousand Things' 'Emilia'

Shakespeare is getting quite the rap sheet on the Twin Cities stages.

He was implicated in murder for the offing of literary rival Christopher "Kit" Marlowe in Liz Duffy Adams' "Born With Teeth," at the Guthrie Theater. Now Morgan Lloyd Malcolm's "Emilia" shows the Bard as a cowardly thief.

Specifically, he stole the art and the heart of poet Emilia Bassano, the "dark lady" who inspired his sonnets. "My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun," Shakespeare wrote in one of the many things cleverly integrated in Malcolm's script. "Coral is far more red than her lips red: /If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun;/ If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head."

The play, up in Marcela Lorca's bawdy and bodacious production for Ten Thousand Things Theater, is delightful. It's done in Ten Thousand's signature style, which means Sarah Brandner's set pieces and props are highly suggestive but minimalist (a tiny desk, an arch).

Sarah Bahr's period costumes, on the other hand, are comparatively lavish and fully realized, if nodding to the costumes in "Six," while resident music director Peter Vitale's compositions give the action a felicitous amplitude.

"Emilia" uses Shakespeare and others from the Elizabethan court to resurrect a figure who has been erased from the canon. The first woman to publish a book of poetry in English, Bassano (1569-1645) was the daughter of a court musician of North African ancestry. Malcolm uses biographical touchstones to sketch a full character pushing up against patriarchal and sexist strictures, one with eerie contemporary resonances.

Lorca's muscular staging teems with wit and the occasionally naughty aside. For instance, Maggie Chestovich has poetry flowing from her bosoms and butt. She's part of an all-female cast that is always in the moment.

The men are swaggering reptiles with recognizable gestures. Mo Perry gives her Lord Howard, one of several roles she slays, the hardy-har-har vocal mannerisms of William F. Buckley married to the strange facial gestures of Tucker Carlson. Her Shakespeare also is gutlessly arrogant.

With the performers playing multiple roles, the show sometimes feels like a delirious display of their ranges. One moment Chestovich is the smarmy Lord Henry Carey, who keeps Emilia as his mistress, and then she is woman writhing in pain at the stake. George Keller is Emilia's beard of a husband, Alphonso, and then is delicate and high-voiced Margaret Johnson. Kimberly Richardson, who choreographs the show, comes in as a caring midwife and an upper-class woman who hires Emilia to tutor her daughter.

"Emilia" doubles as a showcase of new talent, as well. Tejeda impresses as Emilia, with a flawless command of her lines and the young poet's irrepressible soul, while Sophina Saggau sparks in several roles, including as Lady Katherine Howard, who benefits from the status quo even though she may secretly desire a society where women's talents might have space and encouragement to grow.

The play is about history, but that comes with a lot of winks. It shows the stresses and sacrifices that women endure to accommodate and please men. And it's not really about the past.

As the characters dance, the question arises: Are these dancers rehearsing for a show at an Elizabethan court or a Taylor Swift concert?