The Reduced Shakespeare’s Company (wittily referred to as RSC) rose to prominence and international acclaim with their side-splitting debut show titled The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (abridged).

The three-man comedy troupe followed that up with The Complete History of America (abridged) and The Bible: The Complete Word of God (abridged). They now return to the Bard with an abridged version of his Long Lost First Play, allegedly discovered as a manuscript in a parking lot in Leicester, England.

The story goes that the play was written by a 17-year-old William Shakespeare and contains all the characters and speeches that would eventually find their way into individual plays. It is, therefore, a play that would need over a 100 hours to perform and contains multiple unwieldy storylines. As an act of great public service, the three actors offer to perform the world premiere of this ‘lost masterpiece’ in abridged form over approximately 90 minutes.

Playwrights Reed Martin and Austin Tichenor throw in many of the famous speeches and plot devices of Shakespeare’s plays into the mix. Those familiar with their original attempt to condense Shakespeare’s 39 plays into a single show are likely to feel that this is little more than a clever way of rehashing the same idea. In this ‘new’ narrative we find the familiar fairy from Midsummer Night’s Dream, Puck (Joseph Zammit) and the sprite from The Tempest, Ariel (James Ryder) trying to outdo each other in a series of scenes that throw together Hamlet and Lady Macbeth, Viola (from Twelfth Night) and Richard III, King Lear and the Weird Sisters (from Macbeth) and Dromio (from the Comedy of Errors) and Juliet. They are aided and abetted in their desecration of these hallowed characters by a third actor (Nathan Brimmer) and, together, play multiple roles in a fast changing, often side-splitting funny and witty show.

Due to its improvisational nature, the staging is kept extremely simple. Yet, the show would not be successful without a very able backstage that allows for the actors to change into roles in a split second to keep up with the breakneck speed of the show. It was good to see the actors acknowledging them at the curtain call.

The show is directed by Chris Gatt in a strong vaudevillian style, with some excellent musical numbers thrown in for good measure. An element of audience participation, as well as a number of local references, even gave the show a panto feel. All three actors played the various roles with great comic skill and gusto with Zammit and Brimmer excelling in their comic delivery of Shakespeare’s verse.

Watching this show is very much akin to hearing a musical mash-up by your favourite cut-up artist. The fun comes from seeing the actors sample familiar snippets from Shakespeare’s text and dropping it in the most unlikely context. The text is filled with puns aplenty, that are bound to excite those familiar with Shakespeare’s work much more than the uninitiated. Whatever the case may be, however, you will never be able to watch another Disney film without thinking of Shakespeare!