Harlequin Productions

Great show. Excellent singing and the band was great. Good job Brian esp. on Goldfinger.

Not sure why this place would be rated one star? One reviewer mentioned their difficulty using Shakespearean language and the uncomfortable seats… Well in my opinion the seats are just fine. They fit the décor and are quite alright by comfort. They have free water and a rather decent selection of drinks and a great cider beer. The whole place just screams cozy and historic. As far as the acting… Shakespeare is hard as heck. What we experienced tonight was truly fantastic performances by the actors. We saw Clybourne Park and the cast truly seemed invested and into the moment. I really couldn’t chose a performer that I would consider a weak link. Usually when I watch performing arts one would stand above the rest. They were all enjoyable. Our only gripe was with parking and some of the area around the theater. We had to pay and some of the people in the area were rather interesting :). Our critique would be that it would be nice to meet and greet with the performers in the lobby after the show. Other than that it was a solid experience and we will be back.

We found ourselves in Olympia for a couple of days and decided to attend ‘Harlequins’ production of «Rock N Roll Twelfth Night». Upon arrival we found the exterior/​interior of the building charming. The theater was smaller than first glance would suggest but I’m a fan of smaller venues. The seating was a little uncomfortable, so if the play is on the long side, you might want to rethink attending.
As for the production, I didn’t know what to expect. I saw the words «professional theater» and «rollicking musical adaptation» of my favorite Shakespearean play and booked tickets. I was optimistic that this production would deliver. It didn’t, it was breathtakingly bad and felt surprisingly old. They bill themselves as «professional», so this inevitably raises the expectations bar. Apparently this was the 4^th time this theater has mounted this show and one has to wonder why. The first production dates back to the early 1990’s and perhaps some of the featured rock stars were relevant during that time, but that is hardly the case now.
It was clear that most actors did not have any experience on how to properly speak Shakespearean text, issues of meter, incorrect line interpretations, and glaring mispronunciations ran rampant. I’ve seen this happen in community theater productions but certainly not at the «professional» level. Beyond that, most actors missed the mark on truly embodying their rock icons alter egos. Luke warm caricatures at best. If it hadn’t been for some iconic costuming and the program, I would have been very confused as to what celebrity I was supposed to be watching. Casting a vision such as this takes great care, you have to find reasonable look-​a-​likes that can embody their various rock star alter egos and, at the same time, perform Shakespeare well. Tall order. This production failed miserably. First and for most, this is a Shakespearean play. Reading over the bios, most actors did not appear to have any Shakespearean credits and certainly did not appear to be professional actors with careers that expanded beyond the local market. Sort of makes you scratch your head in bewilderment as to why the directors did not look for professional actors when casting. Again, its Twelfth Night with music (not the other way around), the Shakespeare part of this has to be important.
The second issue with casting a show designed around rock icons is finding singers that can sound like their famous counter-​parts. Most missed the mark In this production, for example, Orsino/​Elvis is a musical theater styled tenor. Not the rock balladeer baritone one would expect from «Elvis». The poor actor was trying his hardest to give Duke Orsino that Elvis-​esque Tennessee twang. The same goes for Janice Joplin, John Lennon etc. The dialects and forced impersonations detracted from the story.
The best thing that can be said for the songs is that they were somewhat melodic. However, after a while, all tunes started sounding the same. The band was quite good, but were over powering the singers at times. The drawback of a small venue. I also wonder at the song that «borrowed» musical snippets from the musical «Rocky Horror Picture Show». It seems like there were some copyright laws breached here, the legal term is known as «sampling». I suspect RHPS was the «inspiration» for quite a lot of this production.
The «adaptation» included all sorts of wink-​wink, nudge-​nudge jokes. At one point, a joke was even made that was highly offensive and not at all what Shakespeare intended when he penned the word «niggardly». Perhaps 10+ years ago this joke «brought down the house» but in 2014 this certainly is not the case.
The production looked and sounded over-​worked .The actors were very wooden and most deliveries lacked the warmth, humor and charm a good rehearsal process should inspire and certainly a well written play such as Twelfth Night. As mentioned, however, this is the 4^th reincarnation of this «musical» and could very well be the reason. I imagine this production looked and sounded exactly the same as it did 10+ years ago.
The set design was nice, but it didn’t really make sense with the production, it would have been the perfect set for RHPS. The costumes did not properly fit the actors. I suspect, they were recycled rather than built. For a royalty free production, it seems that the designers could have purchased better wigs. Not the cheap synthetic ones. I also wonder why Elvis was not wigged. No attempt was made to make this actor look like the «King» at all.
Ultimately, this failure is on the director. I’ve seen many community and HS productions that have produced better work. I would have been more tolerant if they had billed themselves as a community theatre, not a self proclaimed «professional» company. The tickets prices should have also reflected this fact.
My advice is to spend your money elsewhere. Maybe they are not all this bad, but who wants to take that chance with a 38.00 price tag

It has been years since I’ve seen a show at the Harlequin but I did not realize how small the place is. The nice part of a small theatre is that there really isn’t a bad seat in the house and the seats are stadium style, which is great for those who aren’t blessed with height (like me).
I do agree with the other review about how uncomfortable the seats are. It was hard to not move around my chair to get comfortable.
I saw Jesus Christ Superstar the other day and it was entertaining, especially the lady that played Harod. Not only was she a great singer but she was very funny.
I wouldn’t mind coming back to see another show if I was back in town though.

We were in town several months back & «King Arthur III» was performing at HP at the time. With not a whole lot of activities to partake in, during a rainy weekend, we opted to watch KA3.
Geezus. A three hour play performed by amateur actors is too long to watch. Plays shouldn’t be performed here for that length of time when the seats aren’t made to be sat in that long. There may be a decent amount of leg room in front but there’s zero space between each chair. Neighborly knee /​thigh touching is unavoidable. I rate the slightly cushioned seats four out of 10 in the comfort scale.
Their concession stand offers snacks & drinks (alcohol, too) before the show & during intermission. Nice thing about it is the items can be consumed either in the lobby or in the theater.
Parking wasn’t an issue since we walked to Harlequin from the Governor Hotel. However, if you’re driving there is free street parking after 5pm on weekdays & all day on weekends, or in the parking lot behind the theater on Washington.
I’m sure HP has put on great, entertaining performances in the past, since they’re in their 22^nd season now, but paying over $ 30 a ticket to watch 180 minutes of unimpressive acting (minus the lead actor) just made HP only A-​OK for me.