IT’S been 45 years since Adam Long and his partners first hit upon the idea of a 20-minute Hamlet to be performed at Shakespearean-themed Renaissance Faires in his native California.
Little did Long and his two co-writers – Daniel Singer and Jess Winfield – realise at the time that they were planting the seed for what would become the Reduced Shakespeare Company.
That singularly cheeky theatrical venture is resurfacing anew this year in an entirely fresh production that will bring its tour to the Lichfield Garrick from 8th to 11th April.
Directed and co-written by Long, The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (abridged) furthers the theatrical compression that is the stock-in-trade of this RSC, not be confused with the Royal Shakespeare Company.
But in the hands of a new trio of performers – Efe Agwele, Woogie Jung, and Tom Pavey – this brainstorming of the Bard is being fashioned anew.
Adam said:
“The overall goal of doing the complete works is still there – 37 plays and 154 sonnets all for the price of one ticket.
“The audience is going to get their money worth.”
Whereas he performed in the show back in the day, Long is pleased to have a new generation of talent take charge onstage. Indeed, he notes with astonishment that more than 2,400 people applied to fill these three roles.
He said:
“One of the reasons the show works so well is that it has always emanated from the personalities of the actors onstage.
“We’re excited about the actors we’ve got, who are incredibly intelligent and incredibly funny.”
It falls to Agwele to perform Hamlet backwards – one of this production’s defining set pieces – but Jung and Pavey are equally important to a show that leaves no Shakespearean stone unturned.
There’s a micro-condensed Othello scored to a ukulele and a carnage-filled Titus Andronicus done as a YouTube cooking tutorial.
The history plays become a manic football game with a crown passed from one king to the next – King Lear is disqualified for being fictional – and spells, shipwrecks and rings signal the charmed landscape of the comedies.
Adam said:
“I didn’t want this to be an exercise in nostalgia. I just love the whole artistry of theatre – the ritual of it, the celebration of it.
“People just love Shakespeare’s stories – and they always will.”
Tickets for the show in Lichfield are £25. For booking details, call the box office on 01543 412121 or visit the Garrick’s website.
