Sleeper Cell: The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (Abridged) (2000)

When deciding on a movie for this week’s Sleeper Cell, I couldn’t choose between David LaChapelle’s gritty urban documentary of South Central hip hop dancers Rize and David Cronenberg’s 1999 whacked out sci-fi thriller eXistenZ. So I’m cheating by going totally off the board and selecting a live recording of a London dramatic performance! In 1987, Shakespearen scholars Adam Long, Daniel Singer and Jess Winfield put together a show called The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (Abridged), and adapted it into a stage performance¬†to be acted by Adam Long, Reed Martin and Austin Tichenor. And as far as I know, it is now the first ever dramatic performance to ever be reviewed on the Breach! (cue no one caring)¬†

To really gain an appreciation for the grandeur of the work of William Shakespeare, it’s necessary to know at least a little about the man himself. And to provide the audience with a brief biography of the Bard, is writer/actor Adam Long (it’s a lenghty quotation, but it’s sets the tone):
“William Shakespeare was born in 1564 in the town of Stratford upon Avon, Warwickshire the third of eight children; he was the eldest son of John Shakespeare a locally prominent merchant and Mary Arden, daughter of a Roman … Catholic member of the landed gentry. in 1582 he married Anne Hathaway. Shakespeare arrived in London in 1588 and by 1592 he had achieved success as an actor and a playwright. After 1608, his dramatic production lessened, and it seems that he spent more time in Stratford. There he dictated to his secretary Rudolf Hess the work Mein Kampf … in which he set forth his program for the restoration of Germany to a dominant position in Europe. After reoccupying the Reinland zone between France and Germany annexing Austria and the Sudetenland and the remainder of Czechoslovakia … Shakespeare invaded Poland on September 1, 1939. Thus precipitating World War II. (I never knew that before…) Shakespeare remained in Berlin when the Russians entered the city on April 1, 1945 and committed suicide with his mistress Eva Peron. He lies buried in the church at Stratford.”¬†

The production is presented in 2 acts. The first act consists of all Shakespeares Histories and Comedies and all but 1 of the tragedies, all broken down into the most recognizable lines with funny accents and costumes. The live studio audience plays along well and laughs in all the right parts. And we get the obligatory shot of the giggling old woman in the audience every time they thust out their crotches or grab a fake boob or anything like that. 

Delroy Pimpdaddy

The bulk of Act 1 is taken with the opening play: Romeo and Juliet. Adam and Reed play all the major parts while Austin provides important narration. They start with the thumb-biting scene and blah blah blah. Reed gets to be Romeo, and Adam (who plays all the women) is Juliet. Then they do the¬†Capulet¬†party¬†when the 2 ¬†meet for the first time and¬†then quickly to an impromptu balcony scene. It’s the perfect place to start the compendium. If there is a story which the entire English speaking world knows, it’s Romeo and Juliet. God knows how many terribly terrible songs have been written invoking the main characters and how many temporally challenged movie adaptations have been made. Not to mention martial arts movies starring b-list actors paired up with R&B superstars. …that’s really a cheap shot. Delroy Lindo might be b-list, but the dude’s awesome. Even in Gone in 60 Seconds. What a piece of crap.¬†

The trio continue to re-enact the funny bits of Shakespeares tragedies (because, as they point out, they’re much funnier than his comedies) in inventive ways including a cooking show presentation for the cannibalistic war drama Titus Andronicus and an ultra-nerdy Beastie Boys-ish hip-hop version of Othello. The histories are combined into football-style play-by-play, and the comedies are condensed into a quick recitation combining all their plot points into 1 story-ish thing, which, to be honest, really isn’t that funny (it’s not¬†bad either, just not up to par with the rest of the show), and you feel better when it ends after a very short three minutes and fifteen seconds.¬†

Then, the intermission. *sigh*
After an incredible 45 minutes of¬†Act I, the “story” of the performance goes off the rails with a pretty lame intermission. Adam pretends to not want to do Hamlet because it has too many words, and Reed and Austin try to talk him into it. Instead Adam runs down the aisle and out of the theater pursued closely by Austin. Maybe,¬†maybe if the cameras followed the “action” it’d be a bit funnier, but we’re stuck with watching Reed perform a very Renaissance-Fair-Friendly fire-swallow and then roast marshmallows. Yeah. It doesn’t really work. They kind of save it when the stage lights come back up for Act 2 and Reed, still alone on stage, plays the accordian in honor of Shakespeare’s sonnets. Sweet.¬†

Sir Laurence Olivier as Hamlet

Act 2 is devoted entirely to what they consider to be the greatest play ever written in English, Hamlet. Which is where the cool stuff really starts. The acting takes a conscious step up, and there’s more attention paid to the language Shakespeare uses. But the really fun part is the Ophelia scream. Because of Adam’s hesitance to play along with the Hamlet performance, Reed and Austin pull a cute “volunteer” onstage to scream after Austin yells the famous “Get thee to a nunnery” line. She screams as weakly as you’d expect a nervous audience volunteer to scream in front of an full house of theater-goers, so they engage in a character study with the audience and build the tension to allow her a second shot at a more believable exclamation. And it’s awesome. Furthermore, by the end of the show, with the 80+ minutes of goofing off they’ve been doing, they turn up the drama, show you they’re really actors, and blow your socks off.¬†

It’d be impossible to write down the list of the multitude of characters each actor portrays during the course of the 88 minute presentation (and by impossible I mean long, annoying for me, and unreadable for you), so forget about it. Adam plays Juliet, Cleopatra, Cressida and Ophelia. Reed plays Romeo, Lear, Julius Ceasar and Laertes. And Austin plays Titus, Macbeth and Hamlet. And throw in a smattering of a few other less famous characters, a few nurses, and some Richards for all three.¬†

 

It’s important to know that you don’t need to know Shakespeare to enjoy what’s going on here. Seriously, if you have ANY appreciation for theatrical performance at all, this will be one of the funniest “movies” you’ll ever see. Really, it’s dudes running around onstage reciting quick Shakespearen verse while screeching in falsetto girly voices, tripping over stuff and bringing the greatest drama ever written back to Earth. Shakespeare was an actor for God’s sake. I’m all for what Sir Laurence Olivier did for the Shakespeare revival back in the 30′s onstage and the 40′s in Hollywood, but I just can’t imagine that’s how Willy would have wanted it performed. His comedies are the goofiest damn things ever written. And half his tragedies can read more like parodies than serious tragedy. I swear, read Romeo and Juliet again, and tell me Shakespeare isn’t totally making fun of stupid teenagers who LOVELOVELOVE whatever cute girl they happen to be looking at this particular second, and then OH GOD THE WORLD WILL END I HAVE TO KILLLLLLLL MYSELF the instant they don’t get their way. They run away from home. There’s totally a “my-dad-can-beat-up-your-dad” scene. It’s fantastic, and amazingly written and absolutely ridiculous. Titus Andronicus eats a dude’s HEAD. Are you kidding me? And thank god for this production to remind us that Shakespeare used to get wasted in bars and fist-fight with rival actors.¬†

Recent posts by Zack

• Zack says, "Go see The Avengers." - May 4th, 2012
• Zack's Take on: The Mite Peckish Games - April 12th, 2012
• Sleeper Cell is Late to the Party for: The Woman in Black - March 25th, 2012
• Review: Another Earth (2011) - August 14th, 2011
• Sleeper Cell: Haute Tension (2003) - June 23rd, 2011

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