High-Speed Shakespeare Delivers Fun, Laughs
Mark Nicklawske
The Duluth News Tribune
February 2, 2017
Anyone who has a passing interest in live theater has been bonked over the
head with a heavy Shakespeare quote at one time or another.
The 16th century British playwright is a cornerstone of all modern drama from "Purple Rain" to the Super Bowl pregame show.
But his work is not for everyone: Too many "Wherefore art thous" and puffy shirts.
That's where the University of Minnesota Duluth School of Fine Arts' staging of the uproarious and irreverent The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (abridged) can help. It's fair to say all of the 200-or-so opening night audience members left the Marshall Performing Arts Center on Thursday with a good laugh or two and new understanding of the Hamlet death scene.
First performed in 1987 at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, the play is one wacky Saturday Night Live skit after another, skewering Shakespeare's best work with foam swords and burying it in Silly String. Using just three actors and some spontaneous help from the audience, all 37 of Shakespeare's plays are jammed into a 100-minute roller coaster ride.
Director Jenna Soleo-Shanks uses a set that resembles a ramshackle river raft draped in mismatched red curtains to establish the off-kilter and daring theater delivered in the comedy. The play is fast-paced, fun and current — as the ghost of rock star Prince and a Twitter-obsessed president make delightful cameos.
Using the freewheeling style of the original play, Soleo-Shanks even finds a place to bring a little bit of Duluth into Stratford-upon-Avon: Two actors find themselves "bridged" and late for the second act.
And if the actors are late, they can be excused: All three are talented, strong and deliver a nice variety of personal flair to the performance.
Reese Britts, who confessed to feeling under the weather, showed no signs of slowing down. Wearing a T-shirt featuring Shakespeare in Blues Brothers sunglasses, he demonstrated a remarkable gift for physical comedy, bending and flopping around the stage like Gumby. The man can wrestle a ladder and make it funny.
Brendan Finn, who resembles late-night funnyman James Corden both in size and volume, flaunted an array of bad wigs, ill-fitting dresses, golf clubs and pool toys with style. His serious reading of a Hamlet speech earned an unexpected round of applause
.
Tolu Ekisola tied the trio together with a performance that combined the intelligence of a college professor with the grace of a Pro Bowl running back. In one of the funniest scenes in the play, Ekisola steals the Tweed Museum of Art's copy of Shakespeare's First Folio only to see it ripped in half by Britts and Finn.
True to the original staging, audience members get dragged on stage and the theater crowd sings/yells a "round" during the Othello performance. But that's how we all get know Shakespeare better: by screaming along with Ophelia after someone hits a gong.
