It Ain't Shakespeare

The American Shakespeare Center often includes a non-Shakespeare play in its repertoire. This season's ringer is The Three Musketeers, David Richmond's adaptation of the novel by Alexandre Dumas. The story is set, at least, in the early 17th Century, although Dumas wrote it in 1844, and the adaptation was written in the 1990s. It's as hokey as the hokiest Shakespeare, but with lots and lots of swordplay, which the company did quite well, even bringing the fight into the house. At one point, Athos was sitting right next to me, dodging bullets and delivering lines in my ear as if I were one of his comrades-in-arms.

The story follows country boy D'Artagnan to Paris, where he has high ambitions and manages, more or less by accident, to become buddies with Athos, Parthos and Aramis, The Inseparables. They battle in service to the Queen and, of course, save the day, but not before poor D'Artagnan's lover is murdered. I thought he should have been more broken up about that, but, what the heck, it's only theater.