Even though William Shakespeare wrote most of his plays from 1589 to 1613, it is now all the rage to recast his works in the 1930s. Two years ago, the play The Merchant of Venice 1936 was staged at the Swan Theatre in Stratford-upon-Avon in England. That is run by the Royal Shakespeare Company itself.
Back in 2003, the very same Company, which is in some sense entrusted with the very soul and substance of the Bard, commissioned a play entitled Shakespeare in Hollywood. That play, set in 1934, can now be seen right here in Texas. The small but mighty Aurora Arts Theatre in Corpus Christi is the venue. I know it’s a long way from Austin, but if I made trip to see this play, so should you!
Shakespeare in Hollywood, by Ken Ludwig,is so innovative and enlivening that it won the Helen Hayes award for Best New Play of the Year. This comic romp does share one serious element with The Merchant of Venice 1936: they both rail against facism. In the Hollywood play, this comes from an Austrian film director (played by Bob Caro) who fled his home country to make a film in the United States. The real director Max Reinhardt, who escaped Nazi persecution, is given the same name in the play.
It must be said that some familiarity with Shakespeare’s fantastical comedy A Midsummer Night’s Dream would be very useful here, so if you haven’t seen it in a while, you really must watch the 1935 film. That is actually the one this play is based on. One of its stars was James Cagney, and here Cagney is portrayed by Michael Gomez. In the film, the Cagney’s character is turned into an ass; in the play a particularly loathsome film critic gets to wear the head of an ass!
There are several stand-out portrayals in this production. My favourites are three: Julie Thigpen as Louella Parsons, the First Lady of Hollywood (she has 2 stars on the Hollywood walk of fame), and the iconic movie mogul Jack Warner, played by Mojo Albiar. Thigpen lets it rip as Parsons, just what you might imagine the quintessential Hollywood gossip of that era to be. And Albiar as the head of production at the fabled Warner Bros. studio is the perfect combination of overbearing and kind-hearted. Third is Jack Warner’s yes-man Daryl, played by Brandon Besse, whose youth and good looks are ideally matched to his character who gets alternately kissed and strangled.
The premise of the play is that two of the Midsummer Night’s Dream characters invented by Shakespeare – Oberon and Puck – get transported thru time to 1934, where they are cast as themselves in the film! Mason Todd as Oberon is compelling as the King of the Fairies, and the fairy Puck, sensitively played by Isabella Chang, is his loyal but fairly useless servant. As in the play by Shakespeare, a magical flower is the prop that makes various characters fall in love with the first person they see. Puck screws it up, so that most of the cast falls in love with the wrong person, and thus the madcap shenanigans that take over the last half of the play ensue.
The Theatre is owned and operated by Mrs. Mary Chapa, who has continued it in memory of her husband Ed (the theatre is named Aurora in honour of Ed’s mother). I asked Mrs. Chapa about the play. “What drew me to this play was that we had just done Murder on the Orient Express, by Ken Ludwig, which we had a wonderful time with.” So another Ludwig play seemed like a natural choice, “and people have always wanted me to do Shakespeare, but I’ve been a little hesitant about that as I’m not sure how that would be received, so I thought this was like the perfect mix of the two worlds.”
A delightful and whimsical way to spend a couple of hours on your next trip to Corpus Christi. And if you are tired of the slick Broadway touring productions, this is the real deal: hometown theatre with a dedicated cast of fine actors. Highly recommended!
Lead photo: Todd and Chang take centre stage at the curtain call.
Second photo: Mrs. Chapa. On the wall is the framed image for Nunsense, the play which inaugurated the Aurora Arts Theatre in 2010.
Third photo: Besse is at centre, with Albiar at far left in the front row, and Bob Caro at far right.
CAST
King Oberon – Mason Todd
Puck – Isabella Chang
Max Reinhardt – Bob Caro
Jack Warner – Mojo Albiar
Daryl – Brandon Besse
Louella Parsons – Julie Thigpen
Will Hays – Dominic Cruz
Lydia Lansing – Allison Gonzalez
Olivia Darnell – Sabrina Delgado
Dick Powell – Austin Giese
James Cagney – Michael Gomez
Joe E. Brown – Damen Clow
Ensemble – Natalie Thigpen
Ensemble – Sarah Beth Urbanovsky
Ensemble – Havan Kohanski
Ensemble – Rebekah Gomez
Ensemble – Winston Tyler
Ensemble – Anna Story
Ensemble – Rae Day
Ensemble – Lourdes Sosa
Director – Ernest Pruneda
Assistant Director – Jessica Chang
Shakespeare in Hollywood runs thru Aug. 30, 2025
For tickets visit the website: www.auroraartstheatre.com/
