Robin Hood Review
Sherwood’s Merry Spirit: Western Academy’s Robin Hood
By Dan Callahan
This past Friday, the Western Academy students, faculty, and staff put on a hearty adaptation of Robin Hood. The play is co-written by Alex Hoff and Tony Janeiro with music by Mike Whitebread, costumes by Jessica Joseph, and scenery by Charles Collins and the W.A. woodworking and art classes.
As far as Robin Hood tales go, the standard Sherwood Forest fare is served: merry men guffawing between sips of English ale, archery contests with rules that change on a crooked bowman’s whim, woodland brawls, and honest citizens taxed up the wazoo by a grasping tyrant.
The play begins with an overture of telling lyrics from the true but captive king Richard of England, (C. Benedetti) and the silken slippered, would-be rulers of England: Philip, king of France (V. Wollner), and King Prince John (S. Marchisio), the grasping younger brother of Richard. In just a few lines of song, both Phillip and Prince John reveal their palpable disdain for the rightful king of England and its rustic people. Richard, in his turn, stands and sings before the crowd as a righteous man wronged, longing for home.
Following the lofty song of kings, the merry men of Sherwood take center stage with a catchy tune extolling the virtues of woodland outlaws. Nourished by brown ale and wholesome cuts of wild boar, three such woodsmen, Gilbert Greenleaf (H. Banks), Alan a’ Dale (J. Robleto), and Big John (J. Hebert) each leap onto three successively larger plyometric boxes to the tune of the song; Big John sticks his landing onto what looks like a 30-inch box; no wonder he leads the merry men!
Action over starchy dialogue reigns throughout most of the play. French spies (D. Block, N. Chen), sent by King Phillip of France, seek to slander the name of the rightful king with false bulletins. Elsewhere, the fork-tongued Sir Bertram (L. Klimko) advises Prince John into darker and darker machinations. When a well-spoken messenger (J. Oppermann) informs the prince that his brother’s captor demands a hefty ransom for King Richard’s release, Prince John slips into a morose rage, utterly refusing to help his brother.
Plagued by his own jealousy and the whispers of an opportunist adviser, the prince elects to weave a web of lies. The prince’s guard, Gerald, (T. Walters) is scandalized by his prince’s heinous plans, but Gerald’s true feelings are obscured by his visor and menacing halberd. Prince John, with fixed resolve, later proclaims to the people that his brother is dead.
A world away from the prince’s plush rooms, the men of the woods (P. McManus, L. Riches) are content to laugh, drink, brawl, and make merry. Their spirits stand firm against the slew of lies whirling around the kingdom. Will Scarlet (O. Aycock) and Much the Miller’s Son (M. Hebert) ultimately seek to stand against the prince’s tyranny, but in the meantime, they pass the days playfully: jostling each other and rustling up fish stew. When Much misreads a situation midway through the play, Will Scarlet is quick to tell his younger friend that the “ale has addled your wits.”
These sturdy souls keep the merry spirit of England alive during these dark days. We can all thank the woodland spirit that their brown ale abounds. Yet the people of Nottingham labor to no end, pinched by the prince’s brutal tax program.
Little, big John, lacking a clear mission and frustrated by the absence of the rightful king, seeks to keep order in the woods and dole out petty justice. But the burly biceps of little John are not enough to bring righteousness back to England. Besides, little John is hamstrung by the meddling sheriff of Nottingham (L. Twardowski) and his chain-mailed goons (C. Peacock, P. Smoter, J. Dunal, C. Holmes)
The sheriff, ruffled at little John’s vigilante antics, places John in the stockade following a woodland brawl. With John locked up by the law, the sheriff continues to pester the denizens of Nottingham, stopping in at the humble shop of Simon the Cobbler (E. Kruppa) to collect another round of taxes.
Simon, a widower, works dutifully to provide for his fast-growing sons (M. Arellano, V. Lima, O. Epperson, P. Cosgray). Hoping for the best, but overwhelmed by his loss and all the work to be done, Simon stands as just one among many working-class heroes living under Prince John’s ill-begotten regime. With so many taxed to poverty and the defiance of a free people wearing thin, a subtle, enduring hero is needed. Enter Robin Hood.
Robin Hood (D. Henderson) shines through the forest as a stealthy, spectral force. He shifts in and out of scenes, camouflaged by his mossy hood and bark-hued leggings. Robin aids the needy, delivering a sack of coins here, and a kind word there: always on time—and never center stage, a surprising modus operandi for the titular character. And yet, this Robin Hood is exulted in the play thus:
When birds do whistle, whistle I,
Can you not detect me?
Rains collect in forest pools,
Their waters then reflect me,
Their waters then reflect me.
Like a friendly winged thing, Robin flits and flutters in and off stage, unnoticed at times, but always with a purpose: to keep morale afloat in England until the true King should return. Robin is no king—but my—does he act nobly throughout! Truth be told, though, he does deign to waylay a pair of cynical French messengers once, shoving them off stage and gaging them. But they do deserve it; they lie about their malicious intentions and pretend they don’t speak English good.
The nobility of this Robin Hood shines most brightly during the famous Archery contest. Here, it is not Robin who wins glory but his young, crippled pupil, Leo Cobb (P. Cosgray). Cobb wins the archery contest by splitting the arrow of Guy of Gisbourne, the haughty French archer (D. O’Bar). Guy, fuming in his defeat and shocked by Leo’s pro-Richard politics, aims to enact fatal revenge on the young boy, but—what’s this?—the Frenchman is pierced through the breast
by a phantom bowman, apparently perching on a nearby tree, like some mother robin protecting her young.
Once Leo Cobb commits his act of defiance right under the nose of Prince John, the usurper’s subjects rise up against him. Even his loyal herald (V. Skurner) begins to undermine the tyrant openly, criticizing the prince during his general announcements.
The haughty fall hard in this adaptation of Robin Hood, while the humble and repentant are forgiven. Even the black-leather-clad Sheriff repents from his grasping ways when the rightful king returns.
Robin, humbled yet exalted by his service in the holy wars with Richard and the soothing whistles of the woods, contents himself to be a servant of Sherwood’s merry spirit, and by extension: England. He knows his role and executes it well:
Robin, robin, in the wood,
Sherwood’s merry spirit
His silver bugle sounds so clear
Tell me can you hear it?
Tell me can you hear it?
All Green Jays young and old work well together in yet another successful spring show. When you see them, praise them for their efforts!