A lighter look at the Bard comes to Boscobel’s 22nd annual Hudson Valley Shakespeare Festival

Who said, Vaudeville is dead? You don’t have to be a Shakespearian scholar to enjoy “The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (Abridged),” (also known as also known as “The Complete Wrks of Wllm Shkspr (Abridged)”) at the Hudson Valley Shakespeare Festival because it is clever foolishness — vaudeville gone insane. The show’s slapstick humor is high-flying and fast, you have to listen hard to get the joke or just sit back and let it roll.

Terence O’Brien, HVSF’s artistic director, has mined the comic vein in his cast, presenting a side never seen in Kurt Rhoads, Christopher Edwards and Jason O’Connell, tremendous Shakespearian actors with formidable credits. Preparing for two shows simultaneously, Rhoads plays Pericles, Prince of Tyre, Edwards portrays Thaliard and Bolt in “Pericles;” O’Connell assumes the role of Benedick in “Much Ado about Nothing.”

This is Rhoads’ 14th year at the festival. The essence of a successful actor is the ability to change, to get out of his own skin and Rhoads becomes … Julia Child, the cooking queen, clad in an apron, sporting a tightly curled gray wig and tortoise shell glasses, instructing how to cook a rapist in HVSF’s abridged version of “Titus Andronicus” (make that Androgynous).
O’Connell performs every female role in “The Complete Works.” Flipping wigs, he becomes a teary Ophelia, Hamlet’s mom, Juliet and Lavinia, Julia Child’s (ficticious) daughter who’s just been raped.

Once upon a time there was only one RSC (Royal Shakespeare Company) in Great Britain, renowned for training Shakespearean actors. And now there is another RSC (Reduced Shakespeare Company) formed in 1982 by three brash young men from California: Jess Winfield, Adam Long and Daniel Singer. Admittedly, they slept through their English lit classes, and collaborated on the ludicrous, ridiculous, nutty idea of condensing all of the Bard’s plays into one short play with no regard for the eminence or reverence accorded Shakespeare. It turned out to be cutting, poke-in-the-eye blasphemy; wildly wacky, lewd, crude and funny in performance, provoking endless peals of laughter.

One suspects they never slept through their Shakespeare classes, and probably were closet academics with a penchant for the Bard, judging from their cracks, quips and zingers flying around at high speed.

The hapless authors of “The Complete Works…” knew they were not the best minds of their generation, but they kept on writing a zany script, fortified by a stash of pot and a bottle of whisky. According to co-author Singer, they took their show to the open road for seven years. Their script incorporates all 37 of Shakespeare’s plays into a two-hour play.

“Doing aerobic choreography on outdoor stages in direct sunlight, eating dust, interrupted by parades, sweating through layers of costumes, croaking through laryngitis and colds, and dragging our tired butts all over the world has given birth to this script,” Singer said.
“The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (Abridged)” runs in rotating repertory with “Pericles” and “Much Ado about Nothing” through Sept. 6. Ticket prices for all performances are $29-$46.

The theater tent of the Hudson Valley Shakespeare Festival is located on the great lawn at Boscobel 1601 Route 9D, Garrison, New York.

Information and reservations are available by calling the HVSF Box Office at (845) 265-9575 or online at hvshakespeare.org.