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Complete Shakespeare's laughter not abridged
BY LARRY L. KUBERT / For the Lincoln Journal Star

The venerable pros and poetry of William Shakespeare are adroitly skewered—albeit rather crudely at times—in the boisterous comedy "The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (abridged)," engaged in a limited run at the Lincoln Community Playhouse.

Running under two hours in length—including an intermission—the show's three-person cast catapults through all 37 of the bard's comedies, tragedies and histories, all the while spewing ridiculously inane interpretations and mounting sophomoric characterizations.

Attempting to jolts its audience from their "intellectual doldrums," the cast—Brad Boesen, Thomas Crew and Patrick Lambrecht—layers capering shtick, pratfall, and fiasco with gut-wrenching aplomb.

And while the actors are certainly proficient in their hilarious presentation, the play's script by Adam Long, Daniel Singer and Jess Winfield provides a gem for them to work with.

Performing with a multitude of props, but on a minimal stage, the show begins with "Romeo and Juliet," paring the tragedy's action down to a "mere bare bodkin" of the original script.

Beyond the abbreviation, the players offer up some distortedvsometimes harboring on delusional—interpretations of the classic piece.

And these rather grotesquely appealing mutilations continue through the remaining plays.

The production's first act continues with unique renderings such as "Titus Andronicus" as a television cooking show; a rap-style "Othello"; all 16 of the comedies combined into a Mister Rogers-esque children's show; a heavily Scottish-brogued "Macbeth"; a foppish "Julius Caesar"; "Troilus and Cressida" as performance art; and all 10 of the histories, plus King Lear, on the gridiron as a football game.

If I missed any—they were there.

The show's second act is devoted exclusively to that melancholy Dane "Hamlet," and performed with exhaustive histrionics.

Boesen, Crew and Lambrecht do a laudable job of playing a trio of bumpkins lubbering through Shakespeare's plays.

As an actor, it is not easy to create a moronic persona, then adapt the idiocy into a character in another play, but still possessing elements of the original characterization.

The result is a hectic frenzy that works most of the time, although there are occasional drops in the manic intensity as a comedic piece simply falls flat.

A production such as this looks like a lot of fun to do, but ensures the exacting detail to rhythm, timing and execution required is quite arduous, and the fact that Boesen, Crew and Lambrecht generally make it looks so easy is a credit to their performance skills.

If you're planning on attending "the Complete Works of William Shakespeare," expect to be surprised and maybe a tad startled, but most of all, plan on laughing long and hard.