Snoring through your Shakespeare reading? Not anymore! Lovers & Madmen’s production of “The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (Abridged)” featured all of Shakespeare’s plays in a mere two hours – using only three actors! Directed by Andrew Hitzhusen and starring David Kern, Sean Foer, and Emily Wills, “Complete Works” engaged audiences with its humorous and fresh take on some old classics.
Left to right: Emily Wills, David Kern, and Sean Foer
Photo courtesy Andrew Hitzhusen
The show parodied all of Shakespeare’s plays and started off with, what else, “Romeo and Juliet”. The actors, playing themselves playing various Shakespeare characters, then moved through all of the writer’s other works. The plays were presented in various styles including rap, sock puppetry, a football game, Scottish accents, light-saber duels, and mash-ups. By intermission, all of the plays had been covered except for one, “Hamlet”. “Hamlet” took up the second half of the show, in which the actors invited the audience to get involved in the portrayal of Ophelia. The energy in the room built as the team tried to relay the story of Hamlet as quickly as they could. Finally, the team of actors ended the show by performing the play backwards.
Photo courtesy Andrew Hitzhusen
This production was particularly unique because the script allowed for improvisation throughout the show, making every performance different from the last. Actress Emily Wills explained how the group made a conscious decision to take some liberties with the script to appeal to their audience. She explained how the group spent the first few days of rehearsal “reading through the script and tossing around ideas for how to make it relevant to NU then just playing with it on our feet from there.”
“The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (Abridged)” certainly resonated with audiences. Characteristic to the show, the actors often interacted comically with audience members during the performance. This quality certainly effected the show’s reception according to Emily Wills who remarked, “I think it was really well received. I’ve been stopped by a whole bunch of people on campus telling me how much they liked the show, which has never happened to me before–it’s a really rewarding experience having a show that makes people feel like they can come up to you afterwards and talk to you.”