Touring ‘Something Rotten’ is an absolute treat Bob Abelman Cleveland Jewish News, The News Herald, The Morning Journal Member, International Association of Theatre Critics “Something Rotten!” – which takes place in South London in 1595, opened on Broadway in 2015 and is currently on tour and on stage at Playhouse Square – puts to rest the long-standing debate about who actually wrote the plays attributed to Shakespeare. Rumors have long suggested that the author is either or a combination of playwright Christopher Marlowe, essayist Francis Bacon, dramatist George Peele, adventurer Walter Raleigh, William Stanley, the 6th Earl of Derby, or the cultured aristocrat Edward de Vere, the 17th Earl of Oxford. We now know that the plagiarizing Shakespeare got all of his best ideas from the Bottom Brothers, the two down-on-their-luck playwrights featured in the deceptively smart and absolutely shameless spoof written by Karey Kirkpatrick and John O’Farrell. For more of this review, go to www.clevelandjewishnews.com/columnists/.