Nobler or Not, ‘Reduced’ Bard to Play in O.C.

To most people, doing a 40-second version of Shakespeare’s “Hamlet” would be like traveling to New York by tricycle or bathing in a sink: You might be able to do it, but it wouldn’t make much sense.

After all, Shakespeare is subtlety, breadth, lyrical complexity, musical language--and a lot of words. Chopping his classics to thimble size through hatchet editing and stage mischief is just not done--at least not in polite society.

The Reduced Shakespeare Company, which brings “The Complete Works of Shakespeare (Abridged)” to the Plummer Auditorium in Fullerton tonight, never said it was polite. Nor that everything it does makes perfect sense.

But it does claim to be funny.

“Everyone is just supposed to have a really good time--that’s what this is all about,” said Daniel Singer, one of the Los Angeles-based troupe’s three members. “We have respect for Shakespeare. In fact, we all started out doing him seriously, (but now) we’re into the comic possibilities. And, you know, there are plenty.”

RSC finds them by starting with one inarguable point, at least to its way of thinking: for all the Bard’s intensity and depth, he can be a real bore. From there, it is lampoon time as they mix goofy cut-and-paste editing (often running several plays together) with very physical comedy.

Adam Long (the pretty one) plays all of Shakespeare’s heroines under a startling floor-mop wig. Singer and Jess Borgeson take on the hero roles. They all move around quite a bit, and they sometimes abuse people in the front row. Sometimes they even make them come up on stage.

“The Two Noble Kinsmen” has become “The Chernobyl Kinsmen.” Tragedies get introductions such as this one for “Macbeth”: “Never was there a story of more blood and death/Than this one of Mr. and Mrs. Macbeth.” The histories are condensed into a football game.

“This is like what you hated most in school about Shakespeare; we parody it all over the place,” Singer said. “We take stuff from the Marx Brothers movies, even Bugs Bunny cartoons. This is acrobatic Shakespeare.”

RSC, in one form or another, has been at it since 1981, when Long, Singer and Borgeson brought their act to Renaissance faires, first in Northern California and then in the Los Angeles area. Back then, they did a 30-minute “Hamlet” that was pretty successful with audiences. Later, they were asked to do a half-hour “Romeo and Juliet” at a wedding reception.

“We told them that if they wanted to give us the money, sure, we’d do that,” Singer recalled. “We kept doing the ‘Hamlet,’ but that started to get boring, (and we began to change our minds) about the 30-minute format.”

It wasn’t until RSC booked itself into Scotland’s Edinburgh Fringe Festival in 1987 that it finally came up with the current show’s organization. “The Complete Works” was a hit, both with crowds and many of the critics, who may have come as skeptics but were apparently impressed by the company’s verve.

Wrote one festival reviewer: “With the energy of acrobats and the spontaneity of talented comedians, their riotously funny interpretation of our greatest poet will be one reason for getting out of bed early.”

Singer acknowledges that not all critics or scholars have been pleased--”Sure, some have gone away shaking their heads”--but he believes most appreciate what the company is doing because at the heart of the parodies is a genuine admiration for Shakespeare.

“We’ve loved his plays for a long time, and that shows. The more people know about Shakespeare, the more they tend to like us. We have lots of (references and inside jokes) for them. We performed for MENSA (the club exclusively for high-IQers), and they were falling out of their chairs.

“But we also know that Shakespeare, like all good writers, had good moments and bad moments. I don’t think the comedies are very funny--the tragedies are funnier--and the histories can get really boring; they just weren’t as inspired from a dramatic point of view. You find humor in that.”

Since Edinburgh, the company has played at the Los Angeles Fringe and at several Los Angeles-area theaters, usually to praise. The members don’t have many illusions about making it big, however.

As part of the New Vaudeville, a movement that includes the likes of the Flying Karamazov Brothers, Bill Irwin and Penn and Teller, they realize their audiences may be dedicated, knowledgeable and adventurous, but also that they tend to be relatively small.

As Long put it in a 1987 interview: “When you eat fire or play spoons, you’re probably never going to become a household word. You do it for the love of it.”

The Reduced Shakespeare Company performs tonight at 8 p.m. at Plummer Auditorium, 201 E. Chapman Ave., Fullerton. Tickets: $7.50 to $12.50. Information: (714) 773-3371.