The Robber Bridegroom

photo by Joan Marcus

The Robber Bridegroom is a story about Jamie Lockhart, “a gentleman by day and a bandit at night” set in 18^th century Rodney, Mississippi. This southern musical will fill your heart with joy and it will be extremely hard to keep from dancing to its cheerful bluegrass soundtrack.

The modern Robin Hood, Jamie Lockhart (Steven Pasquale), has a plan to marry Rosamund (Ahna O’Reilly), the daughter of local planter, Clement Musgrove (Lance Roberts). But one night he meets a beautiful girl in the woods and falls in love with her, not knowing that the two ladies are the same person. Rosamund is also torn apart by the necessity to marry Jamie Lockhart and her love for a bandit of the woods who’s name she doesn’t know and who’s face she never saw because it’s stained with berry juice.

The story of two double-identity lovers also features a series of comical side characters trying to interfere. Like a lot of fairytales this one also has a stepmother, Salome, hilariously portrayed by Leslie Kritzer. Every number of this greedy and lustful woman is a showstopper as are her outfits “for special occasions”.

The director Alex Timbers fills the show with practical jokes like the local fool, Goat, posing for the reflection of Salome when she is admiring herself in the “mirror” or dropping a box with metal parts every time something is being dropped on stage. Timbers transforms the space by making actors drag wooden planks and blocks around to create an interior or a landscape. The good, old trick of branches being moved around Rosamund by other actors to symbolize her movement in Nothin’ Up, and it’s good to see that Timbers is lighthearted about it.

The stage design, by Donyale Werle, brings the action closer to the audience by cluttering the stage with all sorts of junk, which makes it look like a barn. The presence of the band on stage helps to create the atmosphere of a village festival. Little DIY-style lighting effects like Mason jars with candles hanging from the ceiling in the orchestra, flashlights in the hands of actors, and Christmas lights imitating stars, create a homey yet magical effect.

The Robber Bridegroom by Roundabout Theater Company is funny and dynamic. The production is stylish and the entire cast is very charismatic. The only person who didn’t bring up his highest game was, surprisingly, Steven Pasquale as Jamie Lockhart who is supposed to be over the top sexy and charming because everybody else plays his or her characters with quite a bit of self-irony and exaggeration. Pasquale seemed a bit heavy and reflective as a bandit of the woods making almost no distinction between the two sides of his character’s nature.