Maid Marian is far from the only resident of Nottingham and its neighboring Sherwood Forest to blur gender and sexuality in Adam Szymkowicz’s LGBTQ-celebratory, song-and-swordplay-packed Marian, Or The True Tale Of Robin Hood, one of Theatre Of NOTE’s most exhilarating hits in years.

As Szymkowicz would have it, the real Robin Hood wasn’t a cisgender man at all but a male-attired Maid Marian (Kirsten Vangsness), leading a bunch of Very Merry Men, Women-In-Male-Drag, and Genderqueer Folk in stealing from flamboyant Prince John (Joel Scher) and his fellow Nottingham bigshots and then handing over their wealth to the wretched poor. (It’s perhaps no wonder that no one has ever seen Robin and Marian together.)

 Wandering minstrel Alan-a-Dale is now lady in waiting Alanna Dale (Sierra Marcks), our fourth-wall-breaking narrator, whose attempts to win today’s archery tournament are bested by a stooped-and-wizened old fogey who turns out to be Marian in her second favorite disguise, the other being Robin’s signature green cap, gloves, and leggings.

Before long, our titular hero(ine)’s white wig and fake beard have been ripped off by a pair of sharp-eyed knights (Brad C. Light as Sir Lenny The Observant and Alexis DeLaRosa as Sir Theo The Punctual) and she’s been shipped off to the dungeon, though not of course for long or there’d be no play.

 Marian, Or The True Tale Of Robin Hood features men played by men—the evil Sheriff Of Nottingham (Dan Wingard), Robin’s towering second-in-command Little John (Stephen Simon), the libidinous Friar Tuck (Alex Elliott-Funk), the sadly inconsequential Tommy Of No Consequence (Kristian Bikic), and the aforementioned Prince John and Sirs Lenny and Theo), and women played by women—Lady Shirley (Cat Chengery), who gives the decidedly non-celibate Tuck a reason not to refrain from sex, and Lucy (Liesel Hanson), who manages to coax some rather girly coital moans from Prince (or should that be Princess) John.

And then there are those whose gender is considerably more fluid—the boyish but curvy Much The Miller’s Son (Kelby Jo McClellan), the masculine-feminine Will Scarlet (Alysha Brady), and a couple of guards (Michelle McGregor and Sarah Lilly) who spout puns like “Sherwood? Sure wouldn’t—three of them played by female actors in roles that could just as easily have been cast with males.

 Brief stage directions like “A Big Sword Fight” turn into extended sword-and-staff battles as entertainingly choreographed by Jen Albert as they are excitingly performed by her indefatigable cast, and it’s Szymkowicz himself who came up with a low-tech but highly effective way for arrow after arrow to pierce breast after breast.

Jake Anthony’s expert vocal direction has the cast harmonizing in pre-show audience interaction to madrigals, doo-wop, and hard rock all the way up to a grand finale that has everyone belting out guess which song from guess which Kevin Costner movie.

Under Christopher Johnson’s effervescent direction, there’s not a weak link in the cast of Theatre Of NOTErs, from Simon’s adorable lummox of a Little John to McClellan’s niftily non-binary Much to Bikic’s sweetly self-deprecating Tommy to Elliott-Funk’s lusty Friar Tuck to Wingard’s dastardly Sheriff to Chengery’s luscious Lady Shirley to Hanson’s wide-eyed Lucy to Light and DeLaRosa’s not terribly ept Knights to McGregor and Lilly’s Monty Python-ready Guards.

 Most memorable of all are Vangsness’s splendidly spunky Marian/Robin/Old Man, Scher’s flamboyant, greedy, unexpectedly opposite-sex-oriented Prince John, Brady’s engagingly manly/womanly Will, and above all Marcks’s fabulously feisty, utterly adorable Alanna, whose pivotal scene opposite Brady earns best-of-show.

 Scenic designer Bill Voorhees has transformed the itty-bitty Theatre Of NOTE into Sherwood Forest and its neighboring palace, costume designer Linda Muggeridge has created one 12th-century treat after another, and Matt Richter lights all of the above with flair accompanied by Ryan Beveridge’s subtly effective sound design.

Tor Brown, Michael Cody Farrow, Fiona Lakeland, and Chloe Madriaga understudy multiple roles each. Dawn “Sam” Alden is quarterstaff fight assistant.

Marian, Or The True Tale Of Robin Hood is produced for Theatre Of NOTE by Brady and Kathleen O’Grady and associate produced by Matthew Hobin. Kelly Egan is stage manager.

From his first literary appearance in the 1370s to 2010’s Russell Crowe big-screen starrer, Robin Hood has kept audiences captivated for centuries. Adam Szymkowicz’s gender-bending latest may well be the most entertaining of the lot.

Theatre of NOTE, 1517 N. Cahuenga, Hollywood.
www.theatreofnote.com

–Steven Stanley
August 23, 2018
Photos: Darrett Sanders, except top photo by Fiona Lakeland

Tags: Adam Szymkowicz, Kirsten Vangsness, Los Angeles Theater Review, Robin Hood, Theatre Of NOTE