The stage adaptation of the 1998 Oscar-winning film “Shakespeare in Love” will have its North American premiere at Ontario’s Stratford Festival next summer. The news invited speculation that its commercial producers — Disney Theatrical Productions and Sonia Friedman Productions — plan to ease into the Broadway market, even though the play was a hit in London where it opened last July and closed in April of this year. But the very strong notices from the London critics prompted talk that “Shakespeare in Love” would transfer to Broadway fairly quickly.What may have initially made the producers gun-shy about New York was that one of the few dissenting voices about the West End production came from Ben Brantley of The New York Times. While he praised the direction and design of “Shakespeare in Love,” by Declan Donnnellan and Nick Ormerod, respectively, he had reservations about the adaptation by Lee Hall (“Billy Elliot”) from the screenplay by Tom Stoppard and Marc Norman. “Once the performers start speaking,” he wrote, “a sense of ersatz sets in. The twee factor that was always lurking in the movie advances front and center. The production has been blessed in its central lovers embodied by the equally comely Mr. [Tom] Bateman and Ms. [Lucy] Briggs-Owen with plenty of bona-fide passion. But if the movie canters, the play feels likes it’s skipping along in slow motion.”In 1998, the film version of “Shakespeare in Love” was the upset Best Picture Oscar winner over “Saving Private Ryan,” and it seemed only a matter of time that it would find its true home in the theater. After all, it follows the titular scribe as a very mortal playwright trying to break through writer’s block while working on “Romeo and Ethel the Pirate’s Daughter.” One of his fans is the aristocratic Viola de Lesseps, who disguises herself as a boy in order to win a part in the play. That in turn leads to a passionate, if ill-fated, romance between the two, since Shakespeare is married and she is engaged to a humorless Lord Wessex. Playing the star-crossed lovers were Joseph Fiennes and Gywneth Paltrow, the latter of whom took home an Oscar, as did Judi Dench for her brief but memorable scene-stealing role as Queen Elizabeth I.It was a gutsy move to adapt for the stage what was already near-perfection as a movie. That rarely works out to the play’s advantage. But with the exception of Brantley, there was a consensus that the creative team was successful in making the play sufficiently distinct from its inspiration. Paul Taylor of London’s Independent said that the producers’ smartest move was to hire Donnellan and Ormerod of the critically acclaimed company Cheek by Jowl. “Their profound understanding of Shakespearean drama (its dazzling fluidity; its blithe refusal to respect the ‘rules’ of the genre; it’s mood-mingling suppleness) enriches a production that is filled with moments of sheer stage poetry as well as good-natured, effervescent fun…”Donnellan and Ormerud will repeat their duties for the Stratford Festival production; the casting has yet to be announced. With a company of 28, a Broadway production of “Shakespeare in Love” is a quite a gamble. But both Disney and Friedman, who are allowing “by special arrangement” the Canadian engagement, are hardly shrinking violets. They know their way around theater. One of the best exchanges in the film, which one hopes is still in the play, is between Philip Henslowe, the owner of the Rose Theatre, and Hugh Fennyman, the “money man.” Henslowe explains that the natural condition of the theater “…is one of insurmountable obstacles on the road to imminent disaster.”Fennyman: “So what do we do?”Henslowe: “Nothing. Strangely enough, it all turns out well.”Fennyman: “How?”Henslowe: “I don’t know. It’s a mystery.”
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