The theme of Lorenzaccio, the currently running play at the Shakespeare Theater, makes it a perfect choice for that venue, encorporating so much of the bard's own favorite tropes that it seems to be a long-lost play of his own. The original by Alfred de Musset was not intended to be performed, but read, as it runs to nearly eight hours. The two-and-a-half hour pared down production of a translation and adaptation by John Strand is pretty much perfect: no section is ever so long as to lead your mind to wandering (which could not be said of the first play of this year's season, Macbeth, albeit that might not have been the material, but the production itself). One of the areas that the Shakespeare Theater excels at is costume and set design that help the audience keep track of the multitude of characters, and Lorenzaccio is no exception.

The story is akin to Hamlet in that the lead character is driven to do a deed that he knows will end in tragedy, underscored by his frequent comparison of himself to Brutus. Unlike Hamlet, though, the court around the tyrant Allessandro de Medici are all in favor of his assassination but do not believe that Lorenzo, the coward, is capable or even wants to accomplish the task. Several side plots--a cardinal who designs to prostitute out his brother's wife to gain influence, a noble family who fights an internal struggle between desiring rebellion or peaceful means to achieve governmental reforms--slowly intersect the dilemma of Lorenzo's choice, and the story wraps it all up in an excellently staged climax and denounment that underscores the underlying message of the play: beware of your actions that might not have the consequence that you intended.

Unlike some of the other productions I've seen at the Shakespeare Theater, I thought the entire cast in this one was resoundingly strong. Add to that the unfamiliarity with the source material (I really have no clue about the Medici, although what it resembled more than somewhat was an earlier time in Italian history that Robert Graves portrayed so well in I, Claudius) and this is one play that I can recommend highly.