Two wild and silly musicals form the the extravagant core of an overall scaled back Stratford Festival season. Frustratingly, directorial issues mar the more substantive of the two and flimsy material limits how far the better production can soar.

Something Rotten!, a 2015 Renaissance comedy by John O’Farrell and Karey & Wayne Kirkpatrick, represents a rare modern choice for the festival. That’s a trend I certainly want to encourage and it obviously ties in well at a Shakespeare festival, providing some welcome bard-adjacent content in a new era of only three actual Shakespeare plays per season. But the relentless lightness of the material begs for dramatic contrast. Tiresome musical theatre references (not jokes, references pretending to be jokes) and absurd misunderstanding form the zany backbone of a weak story propped up by catchy tunes and lots of dance breaks (the opening number led by exuberant minstrel Jeremy Carver-James is a true banger). Luckily, Stratford has done two major things right by this understandable but (subjectively) unfulfilling piece of programming- they’ve cast it perfectly and entrusted it to Donna Feore, the single most reliable musical theatre director in the country. The incredibly versatile Mark Uhre gives a star turn as deliciously petty as Jeff Lillico’s sublime supporting performance is fabulously vain. The brilliant Olivia Sinclair-Brisbane doesn’t have quite enough to do in the ingenue role but it’s promising to see her featured as prominently as the text limitations will allow. Dan Chameroy works very hard in a deeply unfunny comic relief role and Stratford’s steadfast dance chorus works even harder executing Feore’s vivacious choreography. Feore’s work is never less than air tight, brimming with energy and ambition, and these qualities have consistently elevated every single text she’s touched, this one absolutely no exception. Feore’s Something Rotten! is bright, fun, and memorable. And while a chorus of dancing eggs will never bring me to my feet, multiple mid-show standing ovations tell you everything you need to know about the audience impact of her work.

The season’s other musical, 1983’s La Cage aux Folles, is similarly well cast. The enlightened pairing of Sean Arbuckle (Georges) and Steve Ross (Albin) gives the piece much-needed emotional grounding as both men are uniquely sensitive and communicative actors in addition to being strong singers. The supporting roles in Cage are criminally underdeveloped, so a completely solid core duo is absolutely necessary for there to be anything here and luckily Stratford had exactly what the production needed in the form of two longstanding company players long overdue for mainstage leading roles and perfectly suited to these ones and each other. Unfortunately the same personnel insight does not come through on the directing side and the production struggles with everything from pacing to spacing to tone and focus. The jokes and language of  Harvey Fierstein’s book feel really dated even if the show’s overarching themes are sadly evergreen so the show needs an infusion of liveliness to make up for it. Instead, intended farce lacks energy and complication, which makes the production feel even more tired. Beneath the dust of the messy production, however, Arbuckle and Ross’ work shines through. After a final scene of bombast, the last moments of the show send the noisy crowd and their antics away, leaving Arbuckle and Ross alone onstage looking into each other’s eyes. La Cage aux Folles gets the big thing right so maybe there’s thematic meaning in, under all the fading glamour, the strong heart being the saving grace.