The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (Abridged)

Reviewed by Holly Bartges

Pack your bags. Make motel reservations. Take a week’s vacation. Miners Alley Playhouse is revved up to take you on a long ride through The complete works of William Shakespeare, all 37 plays. Never mind. It would take longer than one week to accomplish that exhausting feat anyway.

The cast of The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (Abridged).

No need to pack the bags, or make motel reservations this escapade actually only takes 90 minutes. Adam Long, Daniel Singer and Jess Winfield of the Reduced Shakespeare Company through adlibs, audience participation, faux audience participation, pratfalls, low-life adolescent humor, sight gags, puns by the carload, loose adaptation of burlesque, slapstick, rolled all of Shakespeare’s works into one of the funniest comedies of all time. Stupidity works here, because stupidity fits the glove that molds this piece.

Directed by Chris Bleau and Robert Kramer, they join Justin Terry on stage to play all of the parts, and there are skillions. They change wigs and costumes quicker than a leopard changes his spots. Oh, that’s right, they can’t do that, but these three can and do.

Titus Andronicus becomes a Martha Stewart cooking show, the likes of which you certainly don’t want to try at home. Romeo And Juliet falls headfirst into West Side Story. How do they do the balcony scene when Miners Alley doesn’t have a balcony? Easy, they create one instantaneously.

The vulnerable innocent actor falls to Terry, and he demonstrates his vulnerable rap to the hilt when he misunderstands, confusing the definition of Moor in Othello for a place for boats rather than of African descent.

Explaining that Shakespeare was in all actuality a formula writer, and all his 16 comedies have the same plot with different character’s, the comedies get boiled (probably in Titus’s cooking pot), into one sketch with The Love Boat Goes to Verona.

The three muse about dry boring Shakespeare and why couldn’t he like sports? The zany three make up for that missing piece by placing the History plays into a basketball game.

When they’ve completed everything but one, the three run into a snag. At least Bleau and Kramer run into a snag. Terry just doesn’t want to do Hamlet. He so doesn’t want to do Hamlet, he leaves. Ah, yes, Intermissions come at good times.

Act II begins with a reluctant Terry corralled by Kramer cooperating in a galaxy far, far away. Hamlet leaves the planet in a Star Wars motif, complete with R2-D2, C3-PO, Darth Vader, and a myriad of Star Wars characters. It’s giggly, goofy, zany, and very funny. Once is not enough. They run through Hamlet a second time in a minute, and a third time even faster. Not wanting to leave Hamlet be, they take one more turn around the greatest play ever written in the English language, to do it backwards.

The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (Abridged) attacks the funny bone again and again. It’s been running at London’s West End for eight plus years.

To tackle this 90 minute insanity, prerequisite require the actors know comedy, understand precise timing, and have the energy to maintain the physical demands. This cast has it all. If anything could be said, it might be Act II could stand a tad worth of trimming. Some of the jokes are bled out slightly too long, and the ending could be tightened a smidge. The three are precise. They could well be slightly more precise.

Not familiar with Shakespeare? Doesn’t matter. Bleau, Kramer, and Terry easily fill in the cracks. Very familiar with Shakespeare? All the funnier with the puns, the quips, the nonsense. Because of audience involvement, and current topics, it changes every night. One night might not be enough. Be prepared to laugh, until your sides hurt, until you hope for an intermission for more than one reason.