The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (Abridged) at Centennial Park
All Bard, All the Time
by Martin Brady
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Nashville Shakespeare Festival opened Shakespeare in the Park with one play (Taming of the Shrew) for a two-week run. Now, for three more weeks, they’ll give us just about every single entry in the Bard’s impressive catalog. This happens through the magic of a crazy-quilt script written by members of the Reduced Shakespeare Company, who first debuted their parody-and-improv-rich Shakespearean gumbo at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival more than 20 years ago. It’s a popular piece, designed to poke fun at the high-toned language, the eventful plots and the familiar, oh-so-lampoonable characters. Plus, the loose structure affords three actors—Benjamin Reed, Brad Brown, Christopher Campbell—infinite leeway for spontaneous wisecracking and the interpolation of freewheeling contemporary references that (blissfully) have little to do with the Shakespeare. The end result: both homage and honest fun.
Thursdays-Sundays, 7:30 p.m. Starts: Aug. 27. Continues through Sept. 13, 2009
Thursdays-Sundays, 7:30 p.m. Starts: Aug. 27. Continues through Sept. 13, 2009
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