ABOUT
A brief description of the show
Can a cast really cover thirty-seven Shakespeare plays in less than two hours? This fast-firing comedy does just that as it parodies all of the Shakespeare plays (plus the sonnets!) in only two acts. This play is full of energy as the characters run across the stage and keep you guessing how they will pull off the next play.
The play starts with an eccentric version of Romeo and Juliet, followed by a parody of Titus Andronicus (which is portrayed as a cooking show). Next is Othello, which is done as a rap song (the infamous “Othello Rap”). The players compete in a hilarious football game which summarizes the histories (King John, Richard II, Richard III, Henry IV etc), complete with commentary and details of each character's rise and fall from power.
As the characters are about to come to the end of the first act, they realize they forgot to perform Hamlet. One of the actors becomes nervous and runs out of the theatre with another actor chasing him. The final actor is left to entertain the audience by himself, which he does by telling jokes and calling for the intermission.
After the intermission, the missing actors return and save their companion from reciting all of the sonnets. All actors then perform their very abbreviated version of Hamlet (with a little help from the audience), thus “completing” the canon in only an hour and a half!
The Comedies
The Tempest
Prospero, the overthrown duke, who is also a magician, is stranded on an island with his daughter, Miranda. He
rescues a spirit, named Ariel, and in return, the spirit must do his bidding. Caliban, a monster, is a native of the
island, and he teaches Prospero and Miranda the ways of his island...then Prospero enslaves Caliban. Sensing his
evil brother Antonio, is nearby, Prospero creates a tempest to wreck his bro's ship. They wash up on the island.
Then, Caliban befriends two alcoholics who help him try to kill Prospero. They fail. The prince, the prince's brother
and the prince's son were also on the ship Prospero wrecked. Prospero tries to set his daughter up with the prince's
son, but then pulls back and decides to make the prince's son his servant instead. The prince, his brother and
Antonio plot against Prospero, but Ariel tricks them into changing their minds. Ferdinand and Miranda get engaged.
Caliban and his drunk buddies are chased away by goblins. Prospero forgives everyone who he hates and they
throw a party. Prospero decides to stop being magic and plans to destroy his spell books and staff. And they all lived
happily ever after. The play concludes with an epilogue with this message:
CLAP IF YOU WANT TO ESCAPE THE ISLAND.
The Taming of the Shrew
Labeled as a "kind-of history" in the introduction of the play, The Taming of the Shrew seems to be a parody of historical theater. It follows a poor tinker named Christopher Sly, who, after becoming drunk, is taken into the local lord's manor and tricked into believing he himself is the lord. Sly then is introduced to his supposed "wife," a man in drag, and is presented with the in-universe theatrical act The Taming of the Shrew.
The in-universe Taming of the Shrew follows a man named Lucentio who has moved to the city of Padua to attend the university there, but becomes distracted when he is introduced to a beautiful young Woman named Bianca. However, Bianca already has two men out for her love: Gremio and Hortensio, and she is not allowed to marry until her older sister, Katherine, has been married first. Thus, the three men go about attempting to win her favor through such ridiculous acts as disguising as her Latin teacher at the same time at the same event. Hortensio's friend Petruchio arrives and attempts to win Katherine's hand in marriage, for he only is out for her money. One way or another, the two wed, and—as the play is titled after—Petruchio attempts to "tame" her by starving her and depriving her of sleep, thereby breaking her will, and earning her extreme and almost creepy amounts of loyalty. Meanwhile, Lucentio has won Bianca's favor, and the two get married.
Petruchio arrives back in Padua with his "shrew," and the gentlemen, Lucentio and Hortensio, which have all been wed since, are declared to by Katherine that all wives must be undyingly loyal to their husbands. They are then treated to a contest in which they test whose wives will obey their call, once again, in a highly disturbing fashion. Bianca and Hortensio's wife, an unnamed widow, do not heed the call, with Katherine having immediately went to Petruchio's side. The two other men marvel at how well Petruchio has tamed the "shrew," and the "happy" couple leave the stage to go to bed.
Troilus & Cressida
The Tragedies
Troilus and Cressida (/ˈtrɔɪləs ən ˈkrɛsᵻdə/) is a tragedy by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written in 1602. It was described by Frederick S. Boas as one of Shakespeare's problem plays. The play ends on a very bleak note with the death of the noble Trojan Hector and destruction of the love between Troilus and Cressida. Throughout the play, the tone lurches wildly between bawdy comedy and tragic gloom, and readers and theatre-goers have frequently found it difficult to understand how one is meant to respond to the characters. However, several characteristic elements of the play (the most notable being its constant questioning of intrinsic values such as hierarchy, honour and love) have often been viewed as distinctly "modern," as in the following remarks on the play by author and literary scholar Joyce Carol Oates:
Troilus and Cressida, that most vexing and ambiguous of Shakespeare's plays, strikes the modern reader as a contemporary document—its investigation of numerous infidelities, its criticism of tragic pretensions, above all, its implicit debate between what is essential in human life and what is only existential are themes of the twentieth century. ... This is tragedy of a special sort—the "tragedy" the basis of which is the impossibility of conventional tragedy.