Ken Ludwig’s The Three Musketeers at Lakeshore Players Theatre in White Bear Lake

After experiencing two of Ken Ludwig’s plays last season Murder on the Orient Express and Ken Ludwig’s Sherwood: The Adventures of Robin Hood I was excited to see Ken Ludwig’s The Three Musketeers at Lakeshore Players Theatre, maybe too excited. There are a lot positive aspects of the production, but also several things to temper ones enjoyment. The biggest plus is some of the best stage combat I’ve seen, unfortunately it seems to have come at a cost to the other aspects of performance. There is overall sense that the production wasn’t quite ready for an audience, everything things loose and slightly unfocused. Everything that is except for the stage combat, which is very tight, excellently devised and executed. My biggest advice to anyone planning to attend the production is to sit as close to the stage as possible. Distance from the performers only detaches one from the performances and amplifies the technical issues, which include a lack of sufficient amplification.

Ludwig’s script Generally follows many of the plot points of the original novel by Alexandre Dumas, simplified of course and with the notable addition of the character of Sabine, D’Artagnan’s sister. D’Artagnan and Sabine head to Paris from the country, D’Artagnan hoping to become a Musketeer, and Sabine to attend school at a convent. Both are skilled with the blade and after first running afoul of the Three Musketeers Athos, Porthos, and Aramis, they earn their respect and become allies. The villain of the piece is Cardinal Richelieu who opposes the King of France and whose henchman Rochefort D’Artagnan has sworn to avenge himself against. Richelieu also uses a spy called Milady in his attempts to thwart the King and seize power for himself. There are love interests and nefarious plots and schemes all played with a knowing wink at the audience and a modern sense of humor. It’s clear that Sherwood was modeled on this template and while I don’t think the script is as good. I think it’s slightly disjointed and unfocused feel is due more to Eric Morris’ direction.

There is a sense that the production could have benefitted from another week of rehearsal or that in an effort to make sure the swordplay as brilliant as it is, that other areas didn’t get the attention they needed. Even with professional theaters there is a finite amount of time and resources that can be devoted to a play. I think Morris had to choose where to devote the time they had and with stage combat precision equals safety. Once you commit to the fight choreography you have to make sure everyone has it down so no one gets hurt. With how good Mason Tyer’s fight designs are, I can imagine they consumed more time from rehearsals than expected. It felt that several aspects on the technical side of things were also not as sharp as they needed to be. Nathaniel Glewwe’s sound design, particularly the inspired musical choices, everything from Abba to Danny Elfman’s Batman Score was undermined by a lack of volume. I’ve been to several shows where the music overpowered the dialogue but that wasn’t the case here, the balance was just fine, it was the volume level that was the issue. No music was coming from the speakers in the back half of the theater as far as I could tell, all came from the front. Sitting in the second half of the theater it felt like there was a dampening buffer between myself and the play. The lighting by Alex Clark was inconsistent, and there were staging elements that screamed for some creative lighting that just wasn’t supplied. A scene between D’Artagnan and Athos when they have met in order to duel features a minute or so, of the two actors standing in the least lit portion of the stage, not for any effect that I could discern but because someone forgot to light them or execute the lighting cue. Maybe I’m being too hard on a Community Theater production, I don’t cover a lot of them and tend to evaluate the ones I do by the same standards I use with a professional theater company. But I usually find that the ones I cover are at a very high level and this one in my opinion surpassed many professional theater productions in terms of it’s stage combat.

Another downside of the upside of great stage combat is that the performances in some cases suffered. Some roles seemed to have been filled by people who are fantastic and stage combat, but perhaps the acting skills are not as well developed. In other cases, actors I recognize felt a little less solid, and I suspect that is due to devoted much of the preparation to learning the fight choreography. Most of the performances are fine, it’s just a sense that most could have used more time to really hone in on their characters and make their choices more concrete. The best performances are those that have very little fight choreography. Luke Aaron Davidson as Cardinal Richelieu has the perfect over the top villain performance the material calls for. Garrett Hildebrandt who plays King Louis, though it’s a smaller role, gives the solid well defined performance we expect from actors at this level, I don’t think he had a single fight scene.

Look, it’s not a bad production and there are some great elements, and who knows maybe as the show progresses the production will tighten up. This is some of the best stage combat you are likely to see. Just take my advice when booking your seats get as close to the stage as you can. I don’t know if it’s the technical design work of the show or the limitations of the theaters equipment, but the closer the better. Ken Ludwig’s The Three Musketeers runs through October 1st at Lakeshore Players Theatre in White Bear Lake. For more information and to purchase tickets go to https://www.lakeshoreplayers.org/the-three-musketeers

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