Director Phil McKinley (left) worked with the cast of “The Sound of Music” Thursday, July 18, in a rehearsal room at Starlight Theatre. The musical is the only show this summer that Starlight is building from the ground up. Analisa Leaming portrays Maria and shared a moment here with Delilah Rose Pellow, who plays Gretl von Trapp.DAVID PULLIAM/THE KANSAS CITY STAR
LONDON — Many people, it must be said, prefer the idea of Shakespeare’s plays to the reality of them. Whether they admit it or not, such souls feel that Shakespeare is great for seasoning but indigestible as a main course. They’re often the ones you hear promiscuously peppering their conversation with the canon’s best-known lines or speaking of failed politicians as “truly Shakespearean.”
The play that opened on Wednesday night at the Noël Coward Theater here seems to have been created expressly with this audience in mind. It is called “Shakespeare in Love: The Play,” and it might best be described as Shakespeare-flavored, in the way that some soft drinks are advertised as fruit-flavored. Like many such beverages, this show is moderately fizzy and leaves a slightly synthetic aftertaste.
Staged by the inventive team of Declan Donnellan (director) and Nick Ormerod (designer), “Shakespeare in Love” has been adapted from the 1998 movie of that title. Featuring a screenplay by Marc Norman and that most fashionable of cerebral dramatists, Tom Stoppard — with a plot that pondered the sexual and writing habits of the most celebrated playwright ever, and a cast that included Dame Judi Dench, if you please, as Elizabeth I — the film brimmed with class and cachet.
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