The Complete Works of William Shakespeare
The Reduced Shakespeare Company is a three-man comedy troupe known for taking long, serious subjects and reducing them into short, sharp comedies. They have created six stage shows, the first and most famous of which is The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (Abridged) in which the three men do 37 of the 38 plays in the first act and spend the whole second act working their way through Hamlet.
Sprocket Rocket Productions version of this well loved comic farce, directed by A.K. Stewart, never seems to get off on the right foot. From the opening moments, the action and dialogue is rushed, the lighting hurts the players, as there simply isn’t enough of it for the small space as they spend much of their time in the shadows and the players don’t trust themselves or the comic genius that is the RSC’s best piece of work.
The cast consists of Kelly Campbell, Michael Heiman and Christopher D. Turner, all taking turns playing the various roles in some of Shakespeare’s greatest plays. They each have moments, where one can see how great the play could have been had more time and care been taken in the work. Campbell plays Hamlet in the second act and has some very funny moments, while Heiman and Turner do their best work during a scene in which a member of the audience is brought on stage to play Ophelia. This was the best moment of the play, because each cast member took their time, trusted each other and the material and it made for some great theatre. But just like Andrew in final moments of “I Hate Hamlet” after that moment of greatness had past, there was still the rest of the play left to go.
One of the parts of this production that is hard to understand is why if there is a woman in the cast a man still plays almost all the female parts? The play is filled with jokes about this, but they only really play if the cast is made up of three men. Also, the constant use of black outs was deadly to the pace of the show and the scenes, as well as the audience participation, which is a key element to this play, since it seems many of the small audience had no interest to become a part of the show.