If silliness be the food of great evenings, play on.
Shakespeare! Oy! All that iambic pentameter stuff. And the
words! “Bastinado.” “Beadsman.” “Chapless.” And what are we, citizens of the
twenty-first century, to make of: "Touch you the sourest points with
sweetest terms, / Nor curstness grow to the matter"? Say what?
Well, shed your Shakespearean fears, my friends, for
Playhouse on Park has opted to stage “The Complete Works of William Shakespeare
(abridged) [Revised],” a romp through the Bard’s works that takes no prisoners
as it cuts, slices, dices and otherwise dismembers the texts that have weighed
heavily on the minds of high school students for decades. The satire by Adam
Long, Daniel Singer and Jess Winfield first saw the light of day at the
Edinburgh Fringe Festival in 1987 and has since been produced numerous times
around the world. In Hartford
The cast? Well, Shakespeare didn’t have any problem with SAG
contracts, so he filled the stage (albeit with males). So, too, does Playhouse
on Park, but with only three actors: Hanna Cheek, Rich Hollman and Sean Harris,
who play the roles of, well, Hanna, Rich and Sean. You see, the evening is
something of a post-grad seminar delivered by a professor on Angel Dust, with
the three actors attempting to explain and elucidate the plays. It’s lunacy
from start to finish, and a hell of a lot of fun.
It all begins with the actors bemoaning the audience’s lack
of knowledge and appreciation for Shakespeare’s plays, followed by a biography
of the Bard that somehow segues into Adolf Hitler’s life story. That sets the
tone for the rest of the evening as the three actors attempt to present all of
Shakespeare’s works on a bare, thrust stage, using whatever props are at hand.
The jokes come fast and furious, and there’s a lot of improv
on the cast’s part depending on how the audience is reacting. Most of the
Bard’s plays are taken care of in the first act, including a “Folk Othello”
song written by Rich Hollman that evokes the 60s era of Peter, Paul and Mary.
But the evening’s not over because, alas (and alack?), “Hamlet” has not been
dealt with. Hence, the second act, which takes on the famous play both forwards
(plus fast-forward) and, yes, backwards – and Harris’s inability to deliver the
iconic “To be or not to be” soliloquy is priceless…and humorously mirrors most
of the audience’s familiarity with the text – we can get to “that is the
question” and then, well, it’s yadda yadda and mumble mumble.
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| Hanna Cheek, Rich Hollman, Sean Harris. Photo by Curt Henderson |
All three actors are literally on the run from start to
finish, and they don’t seem to miss a beat or a cue, regardless of where they
have to exit (wearing a wig or a garbage bag) or enter (wearing a crown or
water buckets), and they effortlessly beguile audience members to take part
(screaming, running or chanting) in the farcical staging of “Hamlet.”
As good as Hollman and Harris are, and they are very good,
when Cheek is on stage, which is often, she simply exudes her own spotlight.
She’s blessed with an innate (okay, perhaps learned) sense of comic timing, has
a wonderful projection of dramatic (and comedic) body language and, well,
simply knows how to engage an audience, which is no more evident than in the
“song-and-dance” routine she goes through to kill time until the two other
actors make it back to the theater – apparently they’ve gone next door to A. C.
Petersen’s for some ice cream. Hopefully, Playhouse on Park will invite her
back, for she lights up the stage.
“The Complete Works…” runs through July 30. For tickets or
more information call 860-523-5900, X10, or go to www.playhouseonpark.org
For aspiring thespians, the Playhouse is offering
several programs: “Kids on Stage” (grades K- 5) covering music and drama (July
24 – 28); a “Jazz Boot Camp” (ages 16+) for those who “gotta dance” (August 7 –
11); and two summer workshops: “Theatre Confidence” (July 10) and “Acting a
Song” (July 17). For more information go to the theater’s website.
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