Bard silly: Yukking it up at Stratford-on-Arts Barn

Wednesday, Nov. 2, 2005

Click here to enlarge this photo Brian Lewis⁄The Gazette The world’s a stage, and they are ‘‘playas”: John Dickson, Kevin Dykstra and Gary Sullivan clown around during a rehearsal of ‘‘The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (Abridged)” at the Gaithersburg Arts Barn.

‘‘Shakespeare’s comedies aren’t really funny,” admits Frank DeSando, who is directing ‘‘The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (Abridged)” for Montgomery Playhouse. ‘‘Normally when you hear ‘Shakespeare,’ you think: sitting in the park seeing ‘Macbeth’ for four hours and your butt’s getting numb.”

For the record, ‘‘TCWWS(A)” does include ‘‘Macbeth” — how could it not? — but it gets around the numb nether region conundrum by keeping things short, to the point and wickedly funny. As DeSando, who first encountered the comedy at the Kennedy Center in 1999, says: ‘‘I thought it was a brilliant concept, to do everything Shakespeare’s ever done — plays and all the sonnets — in an hour and a half.

‘‘And when I saw it, I nearly split a gut.”

Ay, there’s the rub, as Hamlet once put it. Whether ‘tis nobler to appreciate the Bard of Avon as written, or get thee to the Arts Barn in Gaithersburg’s Kentlands to watch three actors turn his oeuvre into an evening at ye olde improv?

‘‘It’s not really Shakespeare,” DeSando explains. ‘‘Anyone who’s looking for Alec Guinness or Sir Lawrence Olivier — you’re not going to find it here.

‘‘We’re trying to make it light — all the female parts are played by the guy with the beard,” he says. ‘‘I call it nuts and bolts Shakespeare. You get the things that hold the show together: the beginning, the end. It takes a lot of the dry boring stuff out of Shakespeare and makes it palatable.”

Total tempest, dude

As most Shakespeare-philes may have already guessed, ‘‘The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (Abridged)” is the brainchild of American minds: Californians Adam Long, Daniel Singer and Jess Winfield, collectively known as The Reduced Shakespeare Company. After their start ‘‘passing the hat” on the West Coast, the trio moved the show to London’s West End and grew it into a show that ran for a decade at the Criterion Theatre in Piccadilly and is currently on tour in the United Kingdom. There’s also ‘‘The Complete History of America (Abridged)” and ‘‘The Bible: the Complete Word of God (Abridged)” — you get the picture. Writer Reed Martin has been quoted thusly: ‘‘Basically, we cut out all the minor characters and unimportant scenes to get right to the sex and killing, which is what people want to see.”

And that’s it in a nutshell: All 37 Shakespeare plays plus 144 sonnets, delivered in an almost-improvisational manic style.

At a recent rehearsal, Montgomery Playhouse’s three actors — John Dickson, Kevin Dykstra and Gary Sullivan — were put through their paces while De Sando critiqued past performances and executive producer Amanda Marie Imhof rollerskated around the intimate theater’s small stage.

‘‘Gary, I’d like to have more happy witchy dancing,” DeSando tells Sullivan. ‘‘John, can you be a little more ... excited about Troilus and Cressida?”

The sound guy, the director informs his cast, has found a ’60s rock version of ‘‘Greensleeves” for curtain call.

‘‘We are trained professionals,” the actors intone mock-solemnly. ‘‘Do not try this at home.”

Weird, sisters

There’s vomit. Football. Heavy emphasis on words that might not, in another context, sound dirty, like, uh, ‘‘Coriolanus.” And physical comedy, big time.

‘‘It takes a lot out of you,” admits Dickson, a Rockville actor with a flair for physical comedy whose first professional work was at the Maryland Renaissance Festival. ‘‘But there’s a carefree element to the show.”

DeSando had said earlier that his actors were more used to ‘‘playing a character” than interacting with the audience the way ‘‘The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (Abridged)” requires, and Dickson goes along with that.

‘‘These famous speeches are so famous, it’s hard to hear them and not have it feel like ‘acting,’” Dickson says. ‘‘The ones everybody knows — those are the hardest.”

Sullivan sees it a bit differently. Classically trained — his master of fine arts degree in acting from the University of Nebraska Lincoln required a thesis performance from ‘‘Measure for Measure” — he’s less comfortable with what he calls ‘‘the physical stuff.”

‘‘It’s easier for me to remember words,” says the Germantown actor, who says he’s partial to the ‘‘Backwards Hamlet” bit. ‘‘The kind of actor I am, I like to have everything lined up.”

Getting a handle on the 75-plus props that need to be located, used and tossed in a matter of seconds, he says, is somewhere between a complex choreography and a logistical nightmare.

‘‘We all bring different strengths to the table,” he concedes.

And those strengths will be put to the test. As DeSando says, ‘‘It’s not a hundred percent scripted; my goal is to get the audience involved. This is a show especially for them — for all ages except teeny-tiny children.”

He says that regardless of how much or little Shakespeare experience one has, ‘‘The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (Abridged)” will work. But what would the Bard have thought?

‘‘I think he would appreciate it,” the director says. ‘‘The fact that people have taken his works and put a little spin on it.”

Verily, indeed.

Montgomery Playhouse presents ‘‘The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (Abridged)” by Adam Long, Daniel Singer and Jess Winfield is on stage through Nov. 26 at the Gaithersburg Arts Barn, 311 Kent Square Road, in the Kentlands. Performances begin at 8 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays, 3 p.m. Sundays. Tickets are $12, $10 for City of Gaithersburg residents. Call 301-258-6394.