Jeff Whitty and James Magruder’s free adaptation of Sir Philip Sidney’s 16th-century Arcadia, with songs from The Go-Go’s and places nearby, is a great wakeup for a drowsy Sunday afternoon. Amping up the cross-dressing plots of Sidney’s original material, Head Over Heels upends gender norms and is, in the words of a program note, “a celebration of queer joy in all its forms.” The text, a blend of Elizabethan English, florid “Eclogue” spoken by the shepherd Musidorus, and 21st-century language, is a language lover’s delight. “Ventilate the belfry of thy mind,” one character says. Wait, what?
Worthy of note are very fine ensemble choreography by Maurice Johnson, Stephen Russell Murray’s subclinically hysterical worrywart courtier Dametas, and Julia Link’s Pamela, delivering a righteous rock and roll belt.
It wouldn’t be a Constellation show without puppets by Matthew Pauli, including an enormous snake puppet on rods and a singing chorus of sheep (“Mad about You”).
- Head Over Heels, songs by The Go-Go’s,* based on The Arcadia by Sir Philip Sidney, conceived and original book by Jeff Whitty, adapted by James Magruder, directed by Allison Arkell Stockman, music direction by Walter “Bobby” McCoy, Constellation Theatre Company, Washington
*and others
This is be Constellation’s last production at the (perhaps snakebit venue) Source Theatre.