By Amber McGee
Courier Staff Writer
What does it take before a play is considered a masterpiece? Does it take a love triangle? A life or death battle between good and evil? Great costumes and memorable one-liners? Or, as the trend seems to be, is no play a masterpiece until it has something Shakespearean associated with it?
Meet Beatrice Shakespeare Smith, an aspiring playwright with one big advantage over her namesake. It’s not unheard of for writers to “live” with their characters but in Bertie’s case this is very literal, for she lives at the Théâtre Illuminata, where every character from every play ever staged resides. With the four fairies from A Midsummer Night’s Dream as her trusty sidekicks Bertie works her way through life at the Theatre, causing havoc, dyeing her hair an assortment of different colors, watching Ophelia drown herself, and splitting her attention between the hot pirate from The Little Mermaid and the seductive air spirit from The Tempest. After one accident too many the Theatre Manager finally becomes fed up with Bertie and makes a shocking declaration: she must write an original piece and make it a success or be kicked out of the Theatre.
Eyes Like Stars mixes old stage drama with new age humor and references. There’s magic, humor, romance, drama and mystery. If the novel’s summary doesn’t catch readers eyes then the beautiful cover by Jason Chan will. Like every novel there are some rocky patches in this book, but they are few and the world-building and original characters make up for it.
The book ends with a cliffhanger but the curtains aren’t closed yet for this story. Throughout the Théâtre Illuminata trilogy readers will follow Bertie and her companions on a journey to solve the two big questions on everyone’s mind; just what exactly is the Theatre, and who is Bertie?