Theatre
Complete Hollywood (Abridged)
Sir Temi Zammit Hall, University of Malta

Parodies work best when the subject matter is as widely known as possible, and what better topic to send up than a globally recognised bastion of popular culture and art? Hollywood films provide the ideal fodder for Completely Hollywood (Abridged) scripted by the Reduced Shakespeare Company and interpreted by Mostly Harmless Productions’ Alan Montanaro, Joe Azzopardi and John Montanaro and directed by James Calvert.

The point of the show is the comic silliness which the three performers bring to the multimillion-dollar and very serious business of film-making, with each actor taking a different stance with regard to the kind of film genre they like and the scripts they’ve written – yes all three are ‘aspiring writers’, with John Montanaro taking on a directorial role as well as an actor’s.

Sundance Kid Joe Azzopardi wants a socially-committed neo-liberal, intellectual message while fame-hungry leading man Alan Montanaro just wants to be the hero of his script – in whatever way possible; and John Montanaro’s interest in high octane action leads him to script a space western to rival Firefly… or not.

Every genre from science fiction to romcoms and war films is given its due send up

The first acts of the show introduced the audience to the 12 Golden Rules of Hollywood – from creating action and suspense to combining a new film out of two old ones because tried and tested formulae work best, to remakes and stereotypes about genres like combining Jane Austen’s characters into an action movie to create Darcy’s Angels and so forth.

The comedy here was based on audience recognition of tropes, motifs and images which film viewers are familiar with and subverting them into a funny version of their already over-the-top Hollywood selves implying that Hollywood doesn’t tell a story as much as packages it and sells it to us as a product.

Nothing was sacred, from Hitchcock’s The Birds to Star Wars and silent movies with their speech placards, every genre from science fiction to romcoms and war films was given its due send up.

Special effects came courtesy of James Brincat’s light design and Chris Gatt’s sound design, as well as funny physical antics on the part of the actors.

What the second half offered was a great deal more audience participation with people, who may or may not have been planted, being brought up on stage to perform some of the trio’s zany directions as extras in their jumbo combined film project in which they merge scripts following a row which sends all their papers up in the air.

This followed a discussion on genre at the end of the first half of the show in which audience members were invited to suggest film names for the three arguing actors to decide what category they fit best.

One of the better gags in the second half was the use of very famous lines, tag lines and even film titles as sentences in a conversation which made for very entertaining material if you could identify the references.

While certainly sharp on comic timing and strong on dynamics, Completely Hollywood was pleasantly engaging but quite the laugh a minute I expected it to be, making for a relaxed night out but nothing to shout about.