You couldn't brush a fly away with such a botched swipe. And Seattle Theatre Project excruciatingly recreates the badness. If you haven't seen the 1950s B-flick, you might mistake Knoop for the worst actor in Seattle history. Rather, Knoop and company have reanimated the fumbled acting found in the original. Such numbers carry the musical with mad momentum, and Deborah Fialkow's choreography steers each with careening lunacy.
Wood tells a tale of Shakespearean subtlety and complexity.
David g. Smith's excellent musical adaptation has been performed all over the world in its nearly 15 years. An appropriate homage to the genius of the original, it tampers with as little as possible. The words are much the same. Smith just adds a lot of singing and a bit of dancing. Thankfully, none of these has been changed.