Crossed Swords at Shakespeare Santa Cruz

There is much to want to like about the current Shakespeare Santa Cruz production of The Three Musketeers, adapted in 1999 by Linda Alper, Douglas Langworthy and Penny Metropulos from the 1844 novel by Alexandre Dumas. The production is handsome and good fun, with plenty of sword fights, lots of snappy dialogue and costumes that are at times deliriously over the top.

For the most part the actors play their roles with both sincerity and abandon, propelled by the play’s fast pace and quick scene changes. And while much of the action is meant to take place indoors—in taverns, bed chambers and at court—the wooded setting of the Sinsheimer-Stanley Festival Glen on the campus of UC Santa Cruz feels right.

One of the problems with a story as familiar as The Three Musketeers, though, is that it’s difficult for the audience not to compare the production in front of them with ones they’ve seen before. Like a lot of people, for example, I’m partial to the 1973 film version, in which a young Michael York plays a wide-eyed d’Artagnan to Raquel Welch’s clumsily comic Constance. That’s a tough act for Leigh Nichols Miller and Sepideh Moafi—or any pair of actors, for that matter—to follow. 

Similarly, the presence of Kit Wilder on the Festival Glen stage (he is a terrific Porthos) reminded me of his play-within-a-play version of the Dumas classic at City Lights in San Jose in 2009. At the time, I found the conceit of his adaptation (as the play opens, a stage hand is pressed into service in the role of d’Artagnan) to be a bit one-dimensional and, at times, smug. 

Comparisons, they say, are odious, but if Wilder’s version leaned too far in the direction of parody and camp, this adaptation feels unfocused and even sloppy. While there are plenty of spirited performances, too many of the characters we meet lack depth, and even fewer appear to make a real connection with each other. That’s a serious problem for a play that’s supposed to be about relationships. The catch phrase, after all, is "all for one and one for all."

Consider the relationship between d’Artagnan and Constance. When he meets her, she’s about to be kidnapped by the evil Cardinal Richelieu’s guards. Naturally, he saves her and is immediately smitten. We understand his attraction to Constance (he’s a horny young man; she’s gorgeous), but Constance’s gratitude seems perfunctory. To further prove his love for her, he journeys to London at great peril to retrieve a parcel from the Duke of Buckingham (Erik Heger), thus protecting the secret of Queen Anne’s (Lenne Klingaman) infidelity to King Louis (Charles Pasternak), who’s more interested in the boy in S&M garb who he keeps on a leash than his beautiful queen. D’Artagnan’s reward? Constance gives the lad a peck on the cheek. Shouldn’t she be as infatuated with d’Artagnan as he is with her? I couldn't tell if it was the script or the direction by Art Manke, but the lack of sparks between these two, especially in the first act, is weird.

Worse are the portrayals of Cardinal Richelieu by Richard Ziman and Count de Rochefort by V Craig Heidenreich. These guys should be scheming, plotting, badass evil-doers, but Ziman plays the Cardinal like a weary mid-level manager at Dunder Mifflin. Heidenreich’s Count comes off as inept, a mere errand boy for the Cardinal. No wonder the Musketeers suffer the indignities these two repeatedly hurl at them, but without seeming to feel any real fear. We’re not worried about them, either, which drains a lot of the drama out the glen.

And what of the other Musketeers? Allen Gilmore is one of my favorite actors, so I was eager to see him in the role of Athos, but his Musketeer lacks the gravitas needed to balance the vanity of Wilder’s Porthos. As for J. Todd Adams’s Aramis, he’s supposed to be a pious womanizer, yet his hypocrisy is not as loudly telegraphed as either his virtue or vice. Again, it’s not a question of how others have done it; it’s simply not as interesting to focus on the symptoms over the disease. More importantly, the characters in this story need to be differentiated from each other so that d’Artagnan is given three very different role models to learn from. These Musketeers have way too much in common.

On the bright side is Milady (Katie MacNichol), the remorseless Countess de Winter, who is the only sharp arrow in the Cardinal’s quiver. From the moment she barks at her servant for her gloves, I didn't like her, which is a high compliment. Then there’s Charles Pasternak, who plays the flamboyant and stuttering King Louis, as well as John Felton, the Duke of Buckingham’s Puritan servant, whose rectitude is quickly upended by Milady. Casting Pasternak in both of these roles is a nice touch, and it’s satisfying to watch the actor quickly pivot from pomp to piety and back. Would that this adaptation had given more actors such opportunities.

The Three Musketeers runs through Aug. 28. Tickets range from $15-$50 and are available at the UC Santa Cruz box office, 1156 High St.; at the Santa Cruz Civic Auditorium, 307 Church St.; by calling 831-459-2159; or online at shakespearesantacruz.org.