Swash and Buckle with Wild and Crazy Guys at Idle Muse

Alexandre Dumas The Three Musketeers is at once a buddy adventure tale and a political statement about monarchy and power. Idle Muse Theatre Company kicks off it’s 20th anniversary season with an ambitious production which manages to portray villages all over France, the French Royal Court, The English Royal court and a fallen bastion in the tiny Edge Off Broadway theatre.

This particular adaptation by Robert Kauzlaric originally commissioned in  2010 for the Illinois Shakespeare Festival centers the evil machinations of Milady, a kind of Mata Hari of pre-revolutionary France, in league with the sinister power plays of Cardinal Richelieu,  and stresses the humor of the men soldiers along with their foibles and friendships giving Steve Martin vibes.  The gun slinging and sword fighting is superb and everything you always wanted from an adaptation of this perennial testosterone saturated favorite. In order to give more women roles in this guy centric tale, several characters are gender swapped. And delightfully, Benjamin Jouras plays both the rivals for Queen Anne’s attention: foppish Louis XIII and the Duke of Buckingham. The 15 actors are choreographed with entrances, exits, ingenious transformer like stage alterations (Jeremy Barr’s puzzle like set keeps moving all night) conveying motion and urgency and adventure. Director Evan Jacskson has ingeniously packed this epic into a pocket sized space. 

My only quibble is that the heavy French accents did obscure some dialogue but I must give props to the actors for maintaining it throughout the 2.5 hour play. 

Caty Gordon as Queen Anne was regal, conflicted and restrained, a counterpoint to the devil may care Musketeers.  

This adaptation goes more for the madcap than for the deep bonds between the men. The stakes of the intrigue are clear and bodies continue to litter the stage, but this version is more gamesmanship than a profound statement about relationships and honor.  Being so close to the action leads to an adrenaline rush experience in the theatre. 

It is a fun wild ride and a truly impressive use of a small storefront to convey an epic plot and a story whose latest edition takes up 736 pages. And it’s a cautionary tale about the unchecked power of kings which premiered on No Kings Protest Day giving us all something to contemplate even as we laugh at the antics of the three musketeers.

Gallop on over to The Edge Off Broadway at 1133 West Catalpa to swash and buckle with The Three Musketeers Thursdays through Sundays until April 25th, 2026. For tickets and information go tohttps://www.idlemuse.org/productions/3musketeers

Photo by Steven Townshend of Distant Era

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