“Attention Bard staff: code red. There is a goose behind the concession.” As we take our seats, the audience listens to staff trying to manage a goose incident over their radios. “Attention Bard staff: code green. The goose has been dispatched.” This is the perfect show for Bard regulars who can snicker at all the inside jokes, peer at props from past performances, and laugh at Christopher Gaze’s hilarious audio diary.
A panel of three actors is missing their moderator for a talk about Shakespeare. They stall by telling the audience some facts about the Bard. It’s not going well, and then suddenly a voice from above tells them they have been chosen to act out all 37 of Shakespeare’s plays within 90 minutes or be turned into cider. (And not just any cider, Bard’s sponsor Lonetree cider — what a feat of product placement). “This is the performance of your life,” says the ominous voice as all three actors are compelled into an energetic dance intro.
In terms of the stamina needed to pull off The Complete Works, this really is the performance of a lifetime. This production, directed by Mark Chavez, has a rotating cast of four actors, three of whom appear each night. The performance I attended featured Tess Degenstein, Arghavan Jenati, and Nathan Kay. They were all impressive in their ability to adapt to such a fast-moving script (by Adam Long, Daniel Singer, and Jess Winfield, with new revisions by Singer and Winfield). Degenstein stood out for her emotive facial expressions and comic timing.
As the players struggle to devise a plan to perform all the plays in such a short amount of time, they begin to think of ways to combine multiple plays. In a hilarious scene, they manage to combine all 16 comedies into one. It has all the elements of a hit: identical twins, a shipwreck, and, of course, a wedding.
When the actors decide they could use some background music, they pop an old cassette tape into a player and we hear Christopher Gaze’s audio diary, full of hilarious musings and brainstorming potential marketing lines such as, “get off your skateboard and onto your skatebard.” One of the actors describes Gaze as being the reason Shakespeare exists, and if Dionysius and iambic pentameter had a baby. Another audio diary shares thoughts about attack ads to combat the planetarium’s campaign that says, “The planetarium: light years ahead of Bard.”
Othello gets a nautical treatment, Titus Andronicus is a hallmark Christmas movie, and all the histories are combined for one of the most complex board games you’ve ever seen. “You can slap the Beatles on whatever,” they say as they perform “We all live in a yellow Cymbeline.” And don’t forget the sonnets! They make a brief appearance.
Finally, they are left with the play of all plays: Hamlet. “Do Hamlet good!” yells the ominous voice. It is good, and then they are forced to do it faster, and backwards, and the second act flies by in a blur of Hamlet adaptations that get shorter and shorter until it’s distilled into two minutes.
Bard regulars will enjoy looking at all the props on shelves at the back of the stage and trying to identify which previous productions they’ve been part of. For example, there’s a pub sign from “The Garter,” a giant swan, and a poster with Bard’s former logo. Those new to the Bard experience will receive a crash course in Shakespeare and an entertaining night in the theatre.
