The Reduced Shakespeare Company - Research Paper Example

?How the Reduced Shakespeare Company's rendition of Shakespeare plays is a positive influence in the world of theatre. Introduction The Reduced Shakespeare Company (RSC) was founded in 1981 as a pass the hat act in California. The RSC has created radio pieces, television pilots, television specials and stage shows that have received worldwide acclaim. The company has performed in various locations around the world including Europe, Australia, the Middle East, the Far East and North America. The RSC also has the distinction for playing in various university and civic venues throughout the United States, Great Britain and Ireland. The success of the RSC’s works can be gauged from the fact that three of their shows ran for nine straight years in the Criterion Theatre located in Piccadilly Circus. These shows have been recognised as London’s longest running comedies and have even superseded Andrew Lloyd Weber’s shows in the West End. (Reduced Shakespeare Company) The RSC has some typical methodologies for performing on stage and on adapting popular works. One technique is to abridge entire pieces of literature into manageable pieces of performance on stage. This ensures that the audience is involved in the performance. Another technique is the use of comedy within these works through improvisation and planning to make these performances more entertaining for the audience. Improvisation is a major facet of the way that the RSC conducts its stage performances. The acts are known to be highly varied from one performance to the other, even with the same cast because of the improvisation involved. (Utah Shakespearen Festival) This introduces another favourable aspect of the RSC’s performance style. The constant improvisation ensures that the performances presented are in sync with contemporary trends and styles. This ensures that the pieces of literature and theology presented by the RSC are relevant to audiences even today. In the words of Daniel Singer, the founder of the RSC, the work of the RSC helps modern audiences connect with classic literature. He contends that without such connections, classic literature and performances would turn into a “ghettoistic” culture. The Complete Works of William Shakespeare Evolution The RSC’s most popular presence on stage, television and other forms of media has been The Complete Works of William Shakespeare. This popular piece evolved over a number of years from various experiences and experiments. The founder of the RSC, Daniel Singer and a few other young performers were trying to create a half an hour version of Shakespeare’s Hamlet for a performance at the Novato California Renaissance Pleasure Faire. The venue where the play was staged was hot, full of dust, noisy and full of distractions. It was next to impossible to keep the audience’s attention. The performance venue was frequented by “drunken hecklers, intrusive parades and backstage confusion” in the words of David Singer. Consequently, the cast was forced to improvise extensively. This improvisation improved by a large degree as the performances proceeded. (Singer) Consequently, Daniel Singer along with Adam Long and Jess Winfield began to enact various pieces of literature in rather hilarious ways. The performances were well adapted in terms of time so that the audience did not drift away. The subject material of the piece of literature was delivered using contemporary trends in the performing arts. New trends such as the use of matinee programming, hip hop etc. were also introduced with time to keep the audience engrossed in the performance. Various works from Shakespeare were adapted including Romeo and Juliet, Othello, Hamlet, Merchant of Venice, the line of dramas about England’s kings and the like. Eventually, the troupe decided to merge all of these acts into one performance. This laid the foundation for what became The Complete Works of William Shakespeare. Eventually the entire lineage of Shakespeare’s work was put together and the performance was fine tuned to last a total of some ninety minutes. The first performance was conducted on June 19th 1987 and was performed by Daniel Singer, Adam Long and Jess Bergeson. The actors all used their own first names in the performance and have advised that all other actors enacting this performance do the same. The performance was an instant hit with audiences. Although a script is provided that signals which part each actor is playing but the list is so large and the atmosphere so enjoyable that most people tend to ignore it. Synopsis This performance is split up into two acts that cover up thirty seven plays from Shakespeare in less than two hours. Only three performers perform and the act includes a few sonnets as well. The use of highly engaging costumes and the constant frenzy displayed by the performers keeps the audience guessing in their seats. (Utah Shakespearen Festival) The act typically begins with each actor introducing themselves to the audience. After the introductions, the actors begin with a parody of Romeo and Juliet. This act is followed closely by a parody of Titus Andronicus which is enacted as a cooking show. After this Othello is portrayed using a rap song which popularly came to be known as the “Othello rap”. Other plays are demonstrated throughout the first act with all the comedies combined into a single convoluted reading. The performers justify this be arguing that the comedies all recycle the same plot devices which is very true. This is followed by the historical plays of Shakespeare being enacted through an American football game. The British Crown is used as the football in this game. However, certain variations to this act have existed as per the improvisation techniques of the troupe. A German enactment of this act was done with a soccer ball as the Germans associate more closely to soccer than to American football. Similarly, an Australian enactment featured Australian rules for the football game. The trio perform this act by competing in a hilarious football game where the histories as well as rise and fall of English monarchs is summarised. This is done with complete commentary as well as details of each character’s rise and fall from power. This is followed by a reduction of the play Julius Caesar which is followed immediately by a reduction of Antony and Cleopatra and then by a reduction of Macbeth. Macbeth’s enactment is done by reducing everything down to a duel where the other elements of the drama (witches, Macbeth’s rise and downfall, the King and Queen etc.) are all explained in poorly done Scottish accents. A failed attempt at a scholarly discourse of the Shakespeare Apocrypha is also performed. As the act is ending, the characters are nearly done when they come to the realisation that they did not perform Coriolanus and Hamlet, Shakespeare’s greatest work. However, Adam refuses to enact Coriolanus because of the vulgar title. One of the actors then becomes nervous and sulky and refuses to enact such a difficult performance. He runs out of the theatre and is chased by another actors. This leaves only one actor on the stage who entertains the audience on his own by telling jokes and by calling for the intermission. After the intermission is over, the two actors who had left earlier return and save the third actor from reciting the sonnets on his own. Instead they cover the sonnets by writing them down on a 3 x 5 card and pass the card around the audience. The reluctant actor who left earlier is convinced by the other two actors to continue with his performance. This is followed by the second act. The second act is essentially little more than a performance of Hamlet. This part of the performance is made interactive by involving a member of the audience to play the character of Ophelia in the Nunnery Scene. The rest of the audience is kept involved by making them parts of Ophelia’s subconscious. Three sections are demarcated with representation for the ego, superego and the id. After Hamlet is portrayed once by the actors, it is played out several times which subsequent portrayals faster than previous ones. Eventually the troupe ends the second act by performing Hamlet at great speed – backwards. (Long, Singer and Winfield) Analysis Watching a performance of The Complete Works of William Shakespeare has been compared to flipping channels on a Saturday night. The attitudes and performance styles change from a melodrama to a cooking show to a history documentary to a football game. John Lariviere comments that watching The Complete Works of William Shakespeare turns “an evening of Shakespeare into something out of Saturday Night Live”. (Lariviere) Moreover, the method of presenting this performance is such that anyone can watch this play without requiring an extensive background on Shakespeare and his works to understand it. The play is composed of essentially little else than bawdy jokes and slapstick remarks intertwined with scholarly ideas on literature. This ensures that all manners of audiences are able to enjoy this play. The flexibility of viewership offered by The Complete Works of William Shakespeare has impacted theatre by allowing all manners of people to enjoy classical works of literature. It is hard to sit down and contemplate on the various complications offered in Shakespeare’s original texts. However, if Shakespeare’s original ideas are recast into contemporary trends that everyone can relate to then it offers everyone the opportunity to discover Shakespeare. The use of comedy based elements ensures that the mood of the audience remains light and enjoyable. This ensures positive reviews by the audiences and allows the play to garner a greater appeal as word of mouth ensures that the play is worth watching. There is little surprise that is played for around a decade in West London’s theatres. The performance also has the added advantage of delivering Shakespeare’s techniques right to the audience without making them realise what just happened. They discuss how Shakespeare “distilled” some three or four funniest gimmicks of its time and “milked them into sixteen plays”. The play further takes the liberty of mixing all sixteen plays into one enactment. This way the audience can see how Shakespeare’s work developed and how it can be further evolved. There is little doubt that The Complete Works of William Shakespeare has enough power to trigger the minds of Shakespearean scholars in its audience. The performance of The Complete Works of William Shakespeare offers a rare glimpse into how broad physical comedy can be combined with bawdy gags as well as fiercely honed acting. The cast literally move their way right through the various genres offered by Shakespeare just like a bull through a china shop. It is pertinent to note here that the cast does an extremely amazing job of bringing out rather esoteric aspects of Shakespeare’s work that an audience cannot relate to in any conventional performance of Shakespeare. (Lariviere) Although most Shakespearean scholars hold that the works of Shakespeare are relevant to the twenty first century but their relevance is hard to decipher given the esoteric language and elusive performances enacted. (Shakespeare) This performance has the power of bringing about the themes of Shakespeare’s works that are nonetheless still relevant such as the ambition of Macbeth, the stupidity of Othello and the betrayal of Julius Caesar. This performance brings about the same elements and themes that any other Shakespearean enactment does but it makes them far more relevant to the audience by using contemporary techniques. A simple example is the “Othello rap” song. The theme of Othello is still the same, but the presentation allows the audience greater connectivity. Recapping Macbeth at a duel along with major elements of the plot allow the audience to appreciate how Shakespearean works were composed and they also help to bring about the real meaning of the them in a few minutes. Audiences today have changed and theatre needs to follow suit. The Complete Works of William Shakespeare is an amazing attempt at doing just this. The success of this venture is obvious from two key aspects. One aspect is the popularity that this venture gained while the second aspect is the imitation and replication of such concepts. The Complete Works of William Shakespeare was followed by other similar works such as The Complete Bible, The Complete American History and numerous others. In an age where theatre has given way to more popular mediums such as television and the internet, the need for enactments such as The Complete Works of William Shakespeare is critical to driving audiences back to theatres. The use of uncanny techniques such as involving the audience and keeping everything relevant and short adds to the charm of the performance as audiences are constantly stirred and involved. Conclusion The Complete Works of William Shakespeare has had a positive impact on the world of theatre. It has introduced new theatrical techniques and has shown how contemporary audiences respond best. Moreover, it has helped to enliven theatre again after a long time and has proven theatre’s relevance to our times. Bibliography Lariviere, John. Sothern Florida. 2011. 16 July 2011 . Long, Adam, et al. The complete works of William Shakespeare (abridged): Acting Edition. Applause, 2009. Reduced Shakespeare Company. About Us. 2010. 16 July 2011 . Shakespeare, William. William Shakespeare: The complete works. Random House Publishing, 1997. Singer, Daniel. Reducing Shakespeare: How it started? Miranda Giles. 2 March 2009. Utah Shakespearen Festival. Insights. Study Guide. Utah: Utah Shakespearen Festival, 2009. Read More