News & Reviews

Smart-alecky Shakespeare
Fort Lewis College abridges corpus with a sophomoric script
February 21, 2006
By Patricia Miller Arts & Entertainment Editor

The show must go on as the actors say - or more accurately as the impresarios say - so they don't have to refund any ticket money. And the show did go on Saturday night in the Fort Lewis Gallery Theatre.

At 3:45 p.m. Katie Brost, one of the two Fort Lewis student directors of "The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (Abridged)" heard that one of her three actors, Tiffany Simonton, was too sick to play that night. Brost stepped in and gave an assured, vibrant, comic performance.

But Brost's performance came at a price across town. She had been scheduled to play that night with her improv company, Durango Dot Comedy, at the Arts Center, and the rest of the improveseers had to go on without her.

The Fort Lewis troupe of two directors - the other is Emily Flood - three actors and an ensemble of nine besides the cast, attracted a sold-out audience of nearly 50 Saturday night. They played on a bare stage decked with graffiti: "R+J 4EVA" and "RIP Caesar."
They licensed their play from the energetic Reduced Shakespeare Company, which has its own shows touring this country and the U.K., but has found a way to exploit the troupe's work even further by renting it out.

The script is sophomoric, which makes it perfect for a college audience. It's filled with sight gags, sound gags, even vomit-on-the-audience gags, repeated happily by Brost.
The other two players are short, blond, Michael-J.-Foxish Jimmy Johnson and Miles Batchelor. Batchelor has grown a Mohawk and dyed it blue. It looked particularly fetching when he wore a crown.

All three kept the pace up and got their fair share of laughs. They even managed Scots accents with fine rolling rrrrrs for "Macbeth."

They started with Romeo and Juliet, delivering such timeless poetry as:

Their fate pursues them

They can't seem to duck it

At the end of Act Five,

They both kick the bucket.

Sock puppets turned up as Cleopatra's asp, and as the players within the play in "Hamlet." And the funniest guest appearance was by a chiffon scarf dangled by a string. It played Hamlet's father's ghost.

The second half was devoted to "Hamlet." Johnson played his Polonius with the same smirk Jon Stewart uses to play George Bush and Brost played Ophelia's drowning by throwing a cup of water in her own face. And they all had fun with sword fights.
The only gimmick that didn't work was turning all 16 of the comedies into a single recitative. It was too long. They had a funnier scheme for the sonnets: They printed the poems in minute type, crammed it all onto a single 4- by 6-inch card, and asked the audience to hand it round.

Would the play be an effective teaching device to interest children in Shakespeare? Hard to say. Many of the best gags depend on knowing the plays, but then the actors are so attractive and energetic that children might think it was cool even if they didnunderstand.

They might enjoy the history plays presented as a football game, but, other than calling out kings' names, it was hard to see the Shakespearian connection. Still Krissy Karahalios got a laugh when, after she delivered props on skates, a crash was heard backstage. I hope it was only a theatrical device.

The audience participated too. They shouted out competing lines as Ophelia's id, ego and super ego. "I love performance art," Brost cooed as she listened to the din. "It's so pretentious."