Asheville, NC – Take two parts: convoluted Shakespearean plot points, a hefty sprinkling of his nefarious characters, and a dollop of his bizarre dream scenes. Mix well until it becomes his impressively confusing tragi-romance, Cymbeline.
Give that recipe to Asheville’s Nemesis Theatre, and it will miraculously morph into one of the most wildly uproarious productions you have ever seen. It is practically an aerobic workout.
While the show claims a cast of nine wildly skilled actors playing 23 roles, there was an unexpected character at the opening night performance: the audience.
I emote quite a bit at a good show. Enormous laughter and vocal expressions of joy, disgust, or empathy escape without warning. Typically, I am the first and loudest to break the silence, but this time I was immediately joined by everyone else.
As we in the audience cheered, laughed, hissed, and booed, the actors encouragingly broke the fourth wall. Our response was a complete surprise, and Nemesis Theatre embraces the unexpected.
That is evident in what could have been a setback for an average theater company. Two days before opening night, Erin McCarson learned that her recently injured foot was actually broken.
Instead of recasting or postponing, Nemesis called on McCarson’s best friend, hilariously adept actor Dwight Chiles. Chiles was not asked to replace her onstage but rather to play her “body” while she delivered her lines from a chair on set.
The result is a uniquely absurd scenario, adding even more comedy to already over-the-top entertainment.
All of this worked beautifully because Nemesis is an ensemble troupe. The best theater always includes an almost insurmountable level of trust between the actors. It is what enables them to take each emotion to its zenith, pulling the audience from merely watching to fully experiencing the art.
Cast among the five plots is Alex McDonald as slimy opportunist Iachimo, with the deft physicality of a cartoon villain.
Christine Hellman brought us the wide-eyed ingénue Imogen. She is delightful from her lovesick beginning to her female-empowered conclusion.
Added to the regular ensemble, Eric Vik’s titular role was delivered with what I would best describe as unbridled jocularity.
To alleviate the confusion of Shakespeare’s fiercely disjointed work, director Melon Wedick created new characters, creatively named Actor 1 and Actor 2, ingeniously played by Molly Graves and Erin McCarson.
Providing recaps of bewildering scenes, adding contemporary commentary, and deadpanning the audience into inexplicable laughter, their inclusion takes this play to the next level.
Jon Stockdale’s transformation of the trope “spoiled Shakespearean prince” into a caricature of a 1980s’ petulant, entitled “frat boy,” was a joy I did not know I needed. It was as if he bounded off the country club tennis court just to humorously irritate every person in the room.
It is quite obvious that Paul Vonasek is a seasoned long-improv performer. Playing several roles, his ability to read an audience, eliciting full belly laughter with a mere look or a perfectly timed pause, is inspired and always effective.
New to the stage (as Posthumus) is Zak Hamrick, who has been acting locally since 2019. I would not have known this had I not read it in the program. While Posthumus is introduced as fairly ridiculous, overwhelmed by his love for Imogen, Hamrick’s descent into mistrust and rage was captivating. His sorrow and pain were palpable.
Those darker aspects of Cymbeline, originally envisioned as a Shakespearean tragedy (later viewed as a tragic romance), are still included in this fresh adaptation. Dexterously delivered via Hamrick, Molly Graves’ Queen, and Christine Hellman’s Imogen. Offering those much-needed emotional valleys, making the peaks of preposterous humor practically unscalable.
Despite being written in 1610, Cymbeline is not often produced. Chosen by Artistic Director Melon Wedick because of the strong parallels between the post-plague time it was created and our collective, current struggles with emerging from the worst of the COVID pandemic, Wedick describes the ending (with the final monologue beautifully written by her) as “comparable to coming out of lockdown and seeing each successive person and needing to have a possibly-tearful, possibly-laughter-filled moment of ‘oh my gosh, you’re ALIVE.’”
That “What we collectively just lived through is *exactly* what Shakespeare and his audience had lived through, and that is exactly what these characters are experiencing.”
Buy your tickets NOW because this is a show unlike any other.
Thursdays–Saturdays at 7:30 p.m., Sundays at 2:30 p.m., May 11–21 at BeBe Theatre at 20 Commerce Street in downtown Asheville.