Miriam Trujillo
The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (Abridged) was a well meaning show with an extremely promising premise. Unfortunately it suffered greatly in execution.
The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (Abridged) promised to perform all 37 Shakespeare plays in 50 minutes. It promised to retell the plays using a variety of creative interpretations: the Histories were to be a football game, Troilus and Cressida was to be an interpretive dance piece, Titus Andronicus was to be a cooking show etc. In the hands of expert actors, this concept could have been incredible. The show could have been a hectic, skilful cycle through all the Bard’s stories, showcasing the actors’ talent and resourcefulness.
Since it was undertaking so much content, The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (Abridged) should have been fast-paced, not stopping to waste a second. Instead the piece drags on too much, finding itself constantly distracted from its aim with little effect. The comedy came across as middling, rather than contributing to the atmosphere.
The intro, announcing the show’s objective, went on for far too long. then, the actors did a rather lengthy retelling of Romeo and Juliet before “realising” that they were running out of time. That’s when they and sped into the storytelling devices they advertised in their synopsis: the football game, the cooking show, etc.
The realisation that they were moving too slowly and needed to speed things up was written right into the show. However, this realisation came across more like a cop out to disguise genuine pacing issues, rather than a device to add any sort of suspense to the play. The acting lacked the dramatic chops to back this up, coming across unfortunately too undercooked to handle the mighty task at hand.
There were some dubious claims about the Bard’s work mixed in also. They classified the Tempest as a comedy and King Lear as a history. Now, in all fairness, perhaps these are just contentious opinions in some branch of Shakespearean scholarship I’ve never heard of, rather than outright errors. They didn’t sit well with me as a spectator, regardless, and detracted even further from my enjoyment of what the show was trying to do.
I could sense a real love of Shakespeare among the cast and writers, and even some scholarly understanding of the great Bard. Unfortunately, this academic appreciation of Shakespeare did not translate well into great entertainment. An academic appreciation of Shakespeare and an actor’s appreciation are two different things and tend to require different skills.
Recommended Drink: a good mug of ale. Just the thing to order from a vendor at the Globe theatre.
The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (Abridged) has concluded its run at Edinburgh Fringe.
Jake Mace
