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Down for 'The Count' and the Bard By TERRY TEACHOUT June 13, 2008; Page W7 Montgomery, Ala.

Phil Scarsbrook Ray Chambers in "The Count of Monte Cristo."

What do you think of when you hear the phrase "Shakespeare festival"? Probably not a full-time resident company that performs a diversified repertory of plays and musicals in a two-theater complex on the edge of a medium-size city. Yet all this is exactly what the Alabama Shakespeare Festival is and does. It's the biggest enterprise of its kind in the Deep South, and I've longed to go back for a return trip ever since I first paid the company a visit three years ago. No sooner did Broadway close up shop for the season just past than I hopped a plane, rented a car and drove to ASF's unlikely home, a handsome cultural park plopped down in the middle of suburban Montgomery that you reach by driving past a Waffle House and turning left just before you get to the Best Buy. That's how the locals steer you to the Carolyn Blount Theatre and the Montgomery Museum of Fine Arts, which are at opposite ends of a 250-acre plot of golf-course-green grass.

I was in town long enough to take in two of the company's three current offerings, and I freely admit that I wasn't there to see "The Count of Monte Cristo." To be sure, Alexandre Dumas's once-popular 19th-century novel of derring-do among the rich and venal has also had a long stage life, but no matter whether you take it in as a book, a play or a movie, "The Count of Monte Cristo" remains a melodramatic period piece that, like "The Scarlet Pimpernel," is now mainly enjoyed by children of all ages. Little did I know that Charles Morey's 1998 stage version is an impeccably solid piece of theatrical work, and ASF is performing it so vividly that I ended up finding the whole thing thrilling from swash to buckle.

Even if you haven't read the Dumas novel, you've probably heard of the plight of Edmond Dantes (Ray Chambers), a hapless young French sailor who is framed for a crime he didn't commit and flung into the dungeons of the Chateau d'If, where he spends a quarter-century incarcerated in the cell next to that of a kindly Jesuit (Chet Carlin) who schools him in the ways of the world and makes him heir to a vast fortune. No sooner does the Abbé expire than Dantes conceals himself in his friend's shroud, escapes from prison, disguises himself as a mega-rich nobleman and heads for Paris, bent on killing, humiliating and/or impoverishing the evil conspirators who stole the best years of his life.

DETAILS

ALABAMA SHAKESPEARE FESTIVAL
Carolyn Blount Theatre, Wynton M. Blount Cultural Park,
1 Festival Dr., Montgomery, Ala. ($19-$42), 334-271-5353

THE COUNT OF MONTE CRISTO
closes June 29

ROMEO AND JULIET
closes June 28

Mr. Morey, the artistic director of Salt Lake City's Pioneer Theatre Company, has squeezed Dumas's 1,400-page blockbuster into a shapely two-act play that rattles along at near-cinematic speed. His staging is notable for the complete absence of the self-parodic touches that you'd expect from a present-day production of a 19th-century costume drama. No eyes are winked, no mustaches twirled: Mr. Morey's cast plays it as straight as a stick, inviting us to experience "The Count of Monte Cristo" not as an exercise in postmodern sniggering but as a heartfelt cautionary tale of how even the most heroic of souls can be shriveled beyond redemption by the desire for vengeance.

Part of what makes this approach work is that Mr. Chambers, who doubles as the director of ASF's Professional Actor Training program, also happens to be a top-of-the-line classical actor. On my previous visit to ASF, I saw him give a tough-minded, elegantly spoken performance as Shakespeare's Coriolanus. It goes without saying that the role of Edmond Dantes is rather less dramaturgically demanding, but Mr. Chambers carried himself as though he were Hamlet, and no sooner did he extract himself from the Chateau d'If than I found myself swept up in his improbable quest for justice. The supporting roles are all acted with conviction, especially Mercedes, the love of Dantes's life, whom Sarah Dandridge plays with affecting seriousness.

Phil Scarsbrook

Avery Clark and Adriana Gaviria in "Romeo and Juliet."

If it's the Bard you require, ASF is also offering a piping-hot modern-dress version of "Romeo and Juliet" jointly staged by Geoffrey Sherman (the company's artistic director) and Diana Van Fossen that is set in South Florida. Elizabeth Novak's "Miami Vice"-style costumes run to skin-tight jeans and stiletto heels, and the youthful cast wields daggers and Palm Pilots with identical aplomb. Such updated stagings are less common in the Deep South than elsewhere on the summer-festival circuit, and I heard a fair number of older folks expressing a certain amount of befuddlement at intermission. The youngsters in the audience, by contrast, had no trouble whatsoever getting the point, which is that Shakespeare is (A) exciting and (B) sexy. I was especially impressed with Adriana Gaviria, who plays Juliet as a very young-looking maiden, thereby increasing the dramatic charge of her pubescent attraction to Avery Clark's regular-guy Romeo.

Montgomery may not be the Old South's hottest vacation spot, but playgoers in search of high-quality theater below the Mason-Dixon line should definitely consider spending a long weekend at the Alabama Shakespeare Festival. "Romeo and Juliet" and "The Count of Monte Cristo" are playing in repertory with Mr. Sherman's staging of "Cymbeline" through the end of June, after which all three productions make way for a revival of "West Side Story" that opens on July 18 and runs through Aug. 24. If it's half as good as the shows I saw this summer and in 2005, I wouldn't hesitate to recommend it sight unseen.

Mr. Teachout, the Journal's drama critic, blogs about theater and the other arts at www.terryteachout.com. Write to him at tteachout@wsj.com.