{"id":651,"date":"2021-12-18T09:44:44","date_gmt":"2021-12-18T09:44:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.critical-stages.org\/24\/?p=651"},"modified":"2022-01-04T20:40:40","modified_gmt":"2022-01-04T20:40:40","slug":"dada-shakespeare-oakland-fun-during-the-plague","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.critical-stages.org\/24\/dada-shakespeare-oakland-fun-during-the-plague\/","title":{"rendered":"Dada Shakespeare: Oakland Fun during the Plague"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Lissa Tyler Renaud<\/strong>*<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (abridged) [revised]<\/em>, by Adam Long, Daniel Singer, Jess Winfield; additional material by Reed Martin. Presenter: African-American Shakespeare Company, San Francisco; Artistic Director L. Peter Callender. Directed by Reed Martin. Premiere: Oct. 3, 2021, in San Francisco, California; re-mounted Oct. 9, 2021, in Oakland. Venue: outdoor stage at Jack London Square, Oakland, California, U.S.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Right about now, we all need a laugh,” said L. Peter Callender, Artistic Director of San Francisco’s African-American Shakespeare Company. “This is the right time and the right place.” <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Indeed. After more than a year of Zoom<\/em>-only shows, we advanced uneasily to tortured months of theatres announcing their re-openings\u2014”We’re Back!”\u2014followed by cancellations, then postponements (this in-person show was planned for 2020), then increasingly involved protocols for joining or welcoming limited capacity audiences: masks, temperature checks, disinfected seating areas, cautions about restroom use, air purifiers, closed concession stands, proof-of-vaccination cards.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Early arrivals. Stage right of center. Photo: Lissa Tyler Renaud<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Then, at last\u2014a show to see, in the open air! Yes, we were in “distanced” folding chairs and distanced from the stage, but what a relief to be at a charmingly makeshift stage in the early October sunshine, enjoying the comfortable smell of the estuary at Oakland’s stunning Jack London Square waterfront, with other people<\/em>. Gratefully, we stretched our legs, or set up picnics on the grass, and got ready (masks on) to laugh. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The show’s reputation precedes it. The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (abridged) [revised]<\/em>, the original creation of the Reduced Shakespeare Company (RSC), has enchanted the Shakespeare sophisticate and seduced the Shakespeare-phobe since the 1980s: just three actors play 75 characters in Shakespeare’s canon of 37 plays (give or take) in 90 minutes (more or less), in a loopy concatenation of puns, spoonerisms, double entendres, malapropisms, kooky rhymes and word associations, mixing Shakespeare’s pentameter with a kind of creeping nonsense and taking periodic flight into the beauties of the original verse. All this in a perfect storm of stupid wigs, ill-fitting costume pieces and dubious props, and all while making entrances and exits so fast they blur.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The 40-year, sprawling life of the play has included stage, television, radio, translations, books, audio and a slew of other Complete (abridged)<\/em> shows (co-written with writer\/performer\/managing partner Austin Tichenor), in more states and countries, and at more prestigious venues (the White House; London’s West End) than you can shake a stick at. The materials on the company’s website offer a cornucopia of gobsmacked notices from the likes of The New York Times<\/em> and The Times of London<\/em>, reaching for descriptors: rollicking, madcap, stupendous, masterful, bawdy and (my favorite) anchorless joy, along with: wildly funny, gloriously funny and the funniest show.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Poster for the production<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

At the helm of this production was the multi-talented Reed Martin (RSC Performer\/Writer\/Managing Partner) who brings to this production top-tier backgrounds as an acclaimed-at-every-turn professional actor, director, writer and circus clown, as well as his work with this play since 1989. Even though the play’s script is the foundation for every production, what Martin crafted\u2014incited?\u2014here seemed<\/em> pitch perfect for this particular, San Francisco-Berkeley-Oakland audience: In the Bay Area, fairly saturated with academics, the play’s “preeminent” expert on Shakespeare turned out later to be a fake\u2014a “pre<\/em> eminent” expert\u2014and the opening, scrambled introduction, delivered book-report style from index cards “researched” on the internet, seamlessly conflated Shakespeare’s biography with Walt Disney’s. Shakespeare’s sixteen comedies are combined into one, all-purpose comedy (good for quarantine shortened attention spans); Titus Andronicus<\/em> is played as a cooking show (just right for our over-the-top culinary lifestyle); the history plays become a football match, with the crown of England passed from team to team (rather like the story of our own sports teams and ballparks). Along with these, the show speaks to this Northern Californian area’s heightened political concerns: the play abounds in references with a light touch to issues of race, gender, sexual consent, same-sex kissing and more that speak directly to values that are cherished here by many.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But surely audiences everywhere recognize themselves in these, as well as in riffs tailor-made for them\u00ad\u00ad, and it’s easy to see how the overall show is so beloved worldwide. The pre-show, pre-flight airplane demo about exits and oxygen masks. A rap version of Othello<\/em>. Hamlet and his friend Fellatio (Horatio), and the Ghost making his appearance as an old gym sock flung over a flat from behind. Romeo’s “Call me but love” line morphing into “butt love.” The re-cap of the whole show done at hyper-speed, including changes of costumes on their last legs, the actors hurling themselves on and off, game to do it for the audience’s pleasure\u2014and just when they’re wrung out and breathless . . . they do the show backwards, at hyper-speed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Publicity shot: Juliet uses a fellow actor’s head as a balcony for the scene with Romeo. In the production, the actor\/balcony’s head was covered with cloth. (L to R): Gabriel Ross, Lijesh Krishnan, Tr\u00e9 Tyler. Photo: Mabel Jimenez<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

The show requires the stage actors of our imaginations. To begin with, along with needing a broad range of physical skills, they have to be able to handle Shakespeare’s language, which demands both bravura and prowess. Part of the audience’s fun is watching the actors balance on their high wire of techniques, moving within a whole complex of extremes and shifts in tone: now providing real commentary on the plays; now playing themselves as actors sorting out script matters and their relationships; now playing (or otherwise accounting for) Shakespeare’s own shifting characters, such as what we need from actors in Romeo and Juliet<\/em>, its early scenes giddy with sexual promise and final ones so violent and sad. Imagine those changes within seconds of each other, the actors hitting their tragic and comic marks with precision. There are as many “straight” moments that devolve into comic ones as there are absurd moments that achieve authentic gravity, each needing its own pace. Now the actors’ actor-characters are confiding in the audience members like pals, now pulling their legs like tricksters. The play gives the impression that it features the breadth and depth of Shakespeare’s plays, but it’s the actors we get to know best.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One of the show’s greatest challenges for the actors is also a key to its charm: interaction with the audience. The play text gave the actors successful strategies for leveling the adult portion of the audience. They teased the Shakespeare know-it-alls with impossible questions about the plays, and let them fill in words for famous lines. The actors also put adults not familiar with Shakespeare at ease: sometimes, the actor-characters were flummoxed by the plays’ lines and stopped the show to figure them out on everyone’s behalf. These approaches gently discouraged snobbery.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Participatory young audience members (sadly unidentified). Seated at the front in the center aisle, at the required 15 feet from the stage. Photo: Lissa Tyler Renaud<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Luckily, the inter-generational nature of the production meant there was material for young people, too. It’s not the first time I’ve learned from watching children watch a play, and this trio of snappy dressers (pink tennis shoes, pink crocs, pink flip-flops) had much to teach. From their perches at front center, they were nothing if not participatory: clapping to the rap, cheering victories, speaking up at every opening, eliciting responses from the actors (“No, do not play with knives at home, that’s not safe”; “Young lady, I don’t want you using that word!”). One of these petite darlings handed out Ophelia’s discarded flowers, sweetly blowing kisses. There are moments in the show itself for both boys and girls everywhere to provoke happy cries of “Eww!”: oven mitts sloppy-kissing and plenty of barf jokes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One might argue that the play deserves more academic analysis. In the past, some critics have compared the show to panto or vaudeville, but the show has no singing or dancing, and I don’t find these associations apt. Certainly, the historical Dada comes to mind, with its spoofs of revered paintings and poems\u2014notably Kurt Schwitters’ 1919 “Anna Blume,” a near-nonsense parody of a formal love poem. But if a wind-up Godzilla and meaningless necklace of plastic toy boats are what it takes to bind our fractured populations together, I say (from Twelfth Night<\/em>): play on. <\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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*<\/a>Lissa Tyler Renaud <\/strong>MFA Directing; PhD Theatre History\/Criticism. Lifelong actress. Founder-Director, InterArts Training, based in Oakland. Has taught, lectured, published widely on theatre training, dramatic theory, the early European avant-garde, at major theatre institutions of Asia and around the U.S., in England, Mexico, Sweden, Russia. Founding editor, Wuzhen Theatre Festival, China and English-French Critical Stages, <\/em>now board member. Co-editor, The Politics of American Actor Training<\/em> (Routledge); invited chapter, Routledge Companion to Stanislavsky<\/em>. Editor, Selected Plays of Stan Lai <\/em>(U of Michigan P, pending). Senior Writer, Scene4<\/em>; founder, \u201cKandinsky Anew\u201d series.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Copyright \u00a9<\/strong> 2021 Lissa Tyler Renaud
Critical Stages\/Sc\u00e8nes critiques<\/em> e-ISSN: 2409-7411<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Creative<\/a><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

This work is licensed under the
Creative Commons Attribution International License CC BY-NC-ND 4.0.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":655,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-651","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-performance-reviews"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.critical-stages.org\/24\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/25\/2021\/12\/PER-DadaShake-Image4.Girls_.jpeg?fit=800%2C533&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":551,"url":"https:\/\/www.critical-stages.org\/24\/sir-antony-sher-actor-artist-diarist-novelist-playwright\/","url_meta":{"origin":651,"position":0},"title":"Sir Antony Sher: Actor, Artist, Diarist, Novelist, Playwright","author":"Lissa Tyler Renaud","date":"December 13, 2021","format":false,"excerpt":"Ian Herbert* Antony Sher, who has died from cancer at the age of 72 (14 June 1949\u20132 December 2021), has been frequently described as one of the greatest actors of his generation, a view shared by HRH Prince Charles, an avid Shakespeare enthusiast, who named him in 2017 as his\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "In Memoriam"","block_context":{"text":"In Memoriam","link":"https:\/\/www.critical-stages.org\/24\/category\/in-memoriam\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.critical-stages.org\/24\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/25\/2021\/12\/Antony-Sher-feat.jpeg?fit=800%2C533&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.critical-stages.org\/24\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/25\/2021\/12\/Antony-Sher-feat.jpeg?fit=800%2C533&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.critical-stages.org\/24\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/25\/2021\/12\/Antony-Sher-feat.jpeg?fit=800%2C533&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.critical-stages.org\/24\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/25\/2021\/12\/Antony-Sher-feat.jpeg?fit=800%2C533&ssl=1&resize=700%2C400 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":360,"url":"https:\/\/www.critical-stages.org\/24\/migrating-shakespeare-first-european-encounters-routes-and-networks\/","url_meta":{"origin":651,"position":1},"title":"Migrating Shakespeare: First European Encounters, Routes and Networks","author":"Lissa Tyler Renaud","date":"November 27, 2021","format":false,"excerpt":"Edited by Janet Clare and Dominique Goy-Blanquet\u00a0293p.+ xiv.\u00a0 Bloomsbury (The Arden Shakespeare Series) Reviewed by Philippe Rouyer*(Ed. Note: Published in English. Reviewed in French) Ce livre est publi\u00e9 en anglais\u00a0; il n\u2019y a pas pour l\u2019instant de traduction pr\u00e9vue. Il rassemble onze articles et une introduction de 27 pages par\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Book Reviews"","block_context":{"text":"Book Reviews","link":"https:\/\/www.critical-stages.org\/24\/category\/book-reviews\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.critical-stages.org\/24\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/25\/2021\/11\/Rouyer-150x150-1.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":335,"url":"https:\/\/www.critical-stages.org\/24\/ion-caramitru-an-artistic-guiding-force-1942-2021\/","url_meta":{"origin":651,"position":2},"title":"Ion Caramitru – An Artistic Guiding Force (1942-2021)","author":"Lissa Tyler Renaud","date":"November 24, 2021","format":false,"excerpt":"Maria Z\u0103rnescu* Now cracks a noble heart. Good night, sweet prince, And flights of angels sing thee to thy rest. Shakespeare, Hamlet They say a man is not dead as long as another still remembers his voice. Ion Caramitru has not died, nor has he retired to take a rest.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "In Memoriam"","block_context":{"text":"In Memoriam","link":"https:\/\/www.critical-stages.org\/24\/category\/in-memoriam\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.critical-stages.org\/24\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/25\/2021\/11\/image10.jpeg?fit=800%2C533&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.critical-stages.org\/24\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/25\/2021\/11\/image10.jpeg?fit=800%2C533&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.critical-stages.org\/24\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/25\/2021\/11\/image10.jpeg?fit=800%2C533&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.critical-stages.org\/24\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/25\/2021\/11\/image10.jpeg?fit=800%2C533&ssl=1&resize=700%2C400 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":265,"url":"https:\/\/www.critical-stages.org\/24\/aurality-and-the-actor-in-filter-theatres-twelfth-night\/","url_meta":{"origin":651,"position":3},"title":"Aurality and the Actor in Filter Theatre\u2019s Twelfth Night","author":"Lissa Tyler Renaud","date":"December 11, 2021","format":false,"excerpt":"Sarah McCourt* Abstract This article explores the relationship between aurality and the actor in Filter Theatre\u2019s Twelfth Night. It explores how Filter\u2019s collaborative process and focus on resolving staging problems sonically creates a productive interplay between visual, embodied and aural modes of performance. It also considers how the productive tension\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Special Topic"","block_context":{"text":"Special Topic","link":"https:\/\/www.critical-stages.org\/24\/category\/special-topic\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.critical-stages.org\/24\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/25\/2021\/11\/image2.jpeg?fit=800%2C533&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.critical-stages.org\/24\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/25\/2021\/11\/image2.jpeg?fit=800%2C533&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.critical-stages.org\/24\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/25\/2021\/11\/image2.jpeg?fit=800%2C533&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.critical-stages.org\/24\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/25\/2021\/11\/image2.jpeg?fit=800%2C533&ssl=1&resize=700%2C400 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":668,"url":"https:\/\/www.critical-stages.org\/24\/back-to-the-tent-canadas-stratford-festival-goes-retro-during-the-pandemic\/","url_meta":{"origin":651,"position":4},"title":"Back to the Tent: Canada\u2019s Stratford Festival Goes Retro During the Pandemic","author":"Lissa Tyler Renaud","date":"December 18, 2021","format":false,"excerpt":"Martin Morrow* A Midsummer Night\u2019s Dream, by William Shakespeare, directed by Peter Pasyk; June 22\u2013July 25, 2021. R+J, by William Shakespeare, directed by Ravi Jain; Aug. 12\u2013Sept. 26, 2021. The Rez Sisters, by Tomson Highway, directed by Jessica Carmichael; July 13\u2013Aug. 15, 2021. Three Tall Women, by Edward Albee, directed\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Performance Reviews"","block_context":{"text":"Performance Reviews","link":"https:\/\/www.critical-stages.org\/24\/category\/performance-reviews\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.critical-stages.org\/24\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/25\/2021\/12\/image6.jpeg?fit=800%2C533&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.critical-stages.org\/24\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/25\/2021\/12\/image6.jpeg?fit=800%2C533&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.critical-stages.org\/24\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/25\/2021\/12\/image6.jpeg?fit=800%2C533&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.critical-stages.org\/24\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/25\/2021\/12\/image6.jpeg?fit=800%2C533&ssl=1&resize=700%2C400 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":349,"url":"https:\/\/www.critical-stages.org\/24\/rediscovering-stanislavsky\/","url_meta":{"origin":651,"position":5},"title":"Rediscovering Stanislavsky","author":"Lissa Tyler Renaud","date":"November 24, 2021","format":false,"excerpt":"By Maria Shevtsova442 pp. Cambridge University Press Reviewed by Nathan Thomas* With her new volume Rediscovering Stanislavsky, noted British scholar Maria Shevtsova gives us an important and welcome addition to a bourgeoning list of necessary books about the great Russian director and acting teacher. 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