Sean Harris, Rich Hollman & David Salsa (Rich Wagner/Imagine It Framed)
Any show that has audience members so eager to participate onstage during the proceedings that they literally jump over rows of seats to be selected must be doing something right.
And that's certainly the case with West Hartford's Playhouse on Park's new production of the Reduced Shakespeare Company's "The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (abridged)" which opened on Thursday, January 7 and runs through Sunday, January 17th. For anyone who has wondered what it must have been like to be a groundling during a performance at the original Globe Theater back in Elizabethan times, this production, under the direction of Tom Ridgely, must come awfully close. Following an deliberately inauspicious beginning, as the three actors clad in winter coats, wool hats and heavy boots inconspicuously drag in two metal trunks full of their props, these players establish a strong connection with the audience relatively early that continues to grow tighter as the evening progresses.
For three performers who only started working on the show in late December, it ultimately seems like they have been performing together for a quite a while. While the show, as originally written by Adam Long, Daniel Singer and Jess Borgeson back in 1987, does allow for a lot of improvisation both in the rehearsal period and during the performance itself, the three actors in this production take care to respect each other's stage time, not trying to outdo each other, but carefully complement each other's onstage antics--which requires a lot of actorly intelligence and restraint.
Part of the success of "The Complete Works" results from how quickly the three establish their on stage personas. Sean Harris, who in addition to being Head of the Theater Department at West Hartford's Hall High School is one of the three Artistic Directors of the Playhouse on Park, slowly but carefully establishes himself as the wise elder of the group, though not quite immune from the occasional tantrum or moment of frustration. David Salsa, who brings quite impressive improv credentials to the show, is the jolly bald buffon, the actor who gets slapped the most frequently and finds himself alone on stage at one point forced to fill time by recounting tales of how he became the Spanish-language Mr. Clean for a series of commercials set for Telemundo. Rich Hollman, a regular with an improv troupe who also gets to show off his musical skills, is always willing to demonstrate his "acting" skills (he tries to disguise himself as an audience member with predictably little success) and gets the dubious, but for the audience welcome, honor of playing most of Shakespeare's most famous female roles, from Juliet to Cleopatra, Ophelia and Gertrude. He is the most physically active of the players, frequently "spilling" over into the audience and climbing a ladder for Juliet's balcony scene where he has a field day responding to Romeo's line, "Call me but love." (We'll leave it to readers' creative imaginations to figure out where that leads.)
David Salsa & Rich Hollman as Romeo & Juliet (Rich Wagenr/Imagine IT Framed)
And yes, they indeed do all of Shakespeare, but don't go in expecting to get an understanding of the entire canon. For example, for expediency's sake, they decide to combine all of the bard's comedies into a single play, which they claim works since Shakespeare stole, err…they mean…interpolated the same plot twists and gimmicks throughout all of them. The result is a quick five act romp through mistaken identities, erroneously delivered missives, at least six sets of identical twins (or was that four sets of identical triplets?), several tempests, numerous cases of cross dressing, some inadvertant incest thrown in for good measure and virtually every other convention, except for "exit…pursued by a bear."
The histories are treated with equal shamelessness, this time as a football game, with the Britain's hollow crown passed from father to son, from cousin to cousin, with the occasional penalty flag thrown down for squeezing in a fictional character (poor King Lear). And understanding the audience's need for variety, a certain bloody tragedy is played as a cooking show and Othello, in order to remain as politically correct as possible with an all white cast, is performed as a rap musical.
Even Shakespeare purists should have no objections to this show--it's meant to be fun and it is fun. It rare to see an audience so ready to eat out of a cast's hands, but at the Playhouse on Park the audience readily caught the Shakespearean herbs thrown out and probably would have easily devoured Titus Andronicus's Food Network delicacies.
Rich Hollman & David Salsa in Hamlet (Rich Wagener/Imagine It Framed)
Most impressive about the show is the camaraderie among the cast, who perform seamlessly like a veteran ensemble, especially in difficult scenes where they must battle using kitchen utensils (who'd have thought a spatula could be so lethal?). It's clear that their timing has been carefully calibrated and that they trust each other when they find it necessary to ad lib especially when thrown for a loop by an audience member who decides to walk across the stage apparently to beat the intermission crowd to the bathroom. This represents quite an accomplishment for Ridgely and his crew, who utilize their charm and charisma to the max.
The fourth wall between the audience and the players is pretty well decimated early on the production, with audience members unafraid to toss back one liners to the Shakespearean crew and genuinely eager to not only jump on stage to play a screaming Ophelia but to play the screaming demons inhabiting Hamlet's consciousness. Rarely has an audience been so willing to participate so loudly and even memorize a ridiculously long, yet hilarious response.
Ridgely and company try to keep the production as current and localized as possible, with references to Sarah Palin, next door restaurant A.C. Petersen's, even MILF's, all get a shout out. None of these interpolations hurt the show, although a lengthy period at the end of the first act when Hollman and Harris disappear for not-very-believable reasons does tend to put a sudden damper on what has been a genuine frolic up until then. The show is redeemed by the second act, which toward the end includes some clever riffs on Hamlet that in addition to being outstandingly funny must be unbelievably difficult to play. For that success alone, this production, its director and performers deserve a strong "zounds!"
For more info and to purchase tickets for The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (abridged): Call 860.523-5900, ext. 10.
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