If the concept sounds more than a little familiar, perhaps that’s because it is: An actor in a play plays an actress playing an actor in a play. It’s all utterly Shakespearean, and in David Greenspan’s “She Stoops to Comedy,” it’s also wickedly clever.
Anyone who knows their Elizabethan drama knows that only males were permitted to perform on stage, portraying every part in every play. Here, Greenspan composes a late valentine to the Bard, and in the meanwhile, crafts an extraordinary ode to all things theater.
Alexandra Page (Michael Russotto) has had her fill of second-rate parts with second-rate directors in second-rate auditions. Her estranged lover Alison (Gia Mora) has accepted a summer stock part as Rosalind in “As You Like It,” and, as Alexandra imagines it, her honey will spend warm summer evenings cozied up in a Maine cabin with a hunky Orlando. Alas! She conjures up a scheme to win the role of Orlando and woo back her true love under the auspices of her alter ego Harry.
Of course, it all sounds a little bit precious, and you can practically hear the audience tittering at all of the Shakespearean inside jokes, but Greenspan relies heavily upon his audience’s intelligence and imagination to build a dramatist’s puzzle that comes together through a virtual checklist of theatrical devices and classic plot mechanics.
Half playwright’s wet dream and half sheer ingenuity, “She Stoops to Comedy” bends gender assignments back and forth without the use of costumes or sophisticated staging. We actually relax into the notion that Russotto is truly a woman playing a man, and that in itself is a joyful feat of meticulous casting.
Russotto masterfullypulls off the delicate balance between masculine and feminine energies, with natural mannerisms and by employing exaggerated affectations as Alexandra morphs into Harry.
Most of the show’s 90 minutes are spent wondering whether or not gender is ever truly relevant in matters of the heart. You’ll be too busy laughing to decide.
‘She Stoops to Comedy’
By David Greenspan
Directed by Howard Shalwitz
Through April 22
» Venue: Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company, 641 D St. NW, Washington
» Tickets: $32 to $52
» Performances: 8 p.m. Wednesdays through Saturdays, 2 and 7 p.m. Sundays
» Info: 202-393-3939,
www.woollymammoth.net
