by Kevin Patterson
‘The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (abridged)’ – Written by Jess Winfield, Adam Long, Daniel Singer; Directed by Christopher V. Edwards; Scenic Design by Afsoon Pajoufar; Lighting Design by Aja Jackson; Sound Design by Elizabeth Cahill; Costume Design by Ysabelle Regis. Presented by Actors Shakespeare Project at Charlestown Working Theater, 442 Bunker Hill St, Charlestown through January 12
What’s in a name? If the title of the Actors’ Shakespeare Company’s newest production The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (abridged) is any indication, a name may well perfectly encapsulate the essence of a thing. Behind what may seem to be a promise of schoolhouse pedantry, this new production prepares an ambush of low-key, unassuming fun for the whole family.
The play itself assumes this masquerade as it begins: an actor (Marc Pierre) implores the audience to silence cell phones and refrain from recording, a seemingly benign introduction. He is enthusiastic, relatable, quick on his feet, and friendly — a real pleasure to regard, even as he performs some of the procedural mundanities of theater. Soon, though, he introduces an eminent but insecure scholar, Ivy Ryan, who offers a onceover about our modern disinterest in the Bard. Her overview is interactive; it requires of the audience multiple shows of hands, brief back-and-forth, and, perhaps frighteningly for the shier members of the crowd, an open request for an audience member to summarize a Shakespeare play — King John, no less. The fear is allayed when the audience participant is none other than Rachel Belleman, the third and final cast member. She joins Pierre and Ryan onstage and reads a biography of Shakespeare, slowly conflating him with Adolf Hitler. If it was not already abundantly clear, the play has dropped its lofty pretense and has shifted to the realm of straight, irreverent comedy.
The mission of the show is by now clear: the trio will perform all of Shakespeare’s 37 plays consecutively. It is an educational endeavor, they purport, and so to begin, they choose the most famous of his comedies: Romeo and Juliet. To suit Ryan’s goal and thereby adapt the play for popular, contemporary interest, the Montagues and Capulets are translated to Red Sox and Yankees fans, allowing Pierre to put on perhaps his greatest – and most Boston-friendly — comedic guise of the performance: a caricature of a New Yorker. He soon becomes a young, stoner Romeo, before his fateful demise alongside Belleman. This introductory play-within-a-play demonstrates this show at its best: relating Shakespeare to the modern day, using all of society’s most familiar tropes to adapt it.
Romeo and Juliet is funny, yes, but it’s also long, and the audience feels the effect. If this performance takes about fifteen minutes, how can the rest of the Bard’s oeuvre be performed before brunch tomorrow? The play anticipates this, and the actors decide to accelerate their performance. And so Titus Andronicus becomes a Food Network-esque cooking demonstration. The histories are mish-mashed into a football game with the various, warring kings as opposing players. In an appreciated decision, the play jams all the comedies into one play, claiming that they are all comprised of the same recycled plot devices, anyhow. This free-for-all is, ironically, when the play is at its weakest, as the actors’ clear talents are wasted on playing comedy of comedy, not the satire that arises from the play’s more flippant moments.
At this point, the performers realize that they have performed all of the plays, but for one, and it’s the big one: Hamlet. Belleman refuses to perform the show and flees the theatre, and so she exits, pursued by a bearish Ryan. A conveniently-located exit door placed upstage-left provides the audience a glimpse of the outside world as Pierre looks for his castmates. Here, the play slows, as Pierre fills time by performing a harmonica/beatboxing number, which though impressive, feels like empty time for the audience, now more than an hour into the show. Finally, Pierre proposes an intermission and the first act closes.
The second act is comprised solely of Hamlet, played thoroughly for comedy in successively shorter iterations, ultimately closing with what is undoubtedly the play’s most captivating moment, a three-minute Hamlet in reverse. With the first having taken the burden of defining the play’s ground rules (or lack thereof), the second act is free to explore the absurd bounds of Shakespeare’s work. Understandably, then, this is when the cast truly excels, with Ryan impressing most definitively in her command of Hamlet forward, backward, and with many an added quirk.
This production finds a fitting home inside the cozy Charlestown Working Theater, its unassuming setting balancing perfectly with the tone of the production it houses. Its small house allows for a great deal of audience involvement at a scale that will not frighten even the most timid of audience members. While there is a great deal of innuendo, the matinee I attended included many families with younger children, and parents should certainly consider taking their kids to this show. This production is happy to drop the white gloves usually used to treat Shakespeare – instead treating audiences to an educational romp through theatre history and is a thoroughly entertaining and enjoyable show. For tickets and information, go to: https://www.actorsshakespeareproject.org/
