Theater group satisfies with speedy renditions of Shakespeare
BY LARRY L. KUBERT / For the Lincoln Journal Star

The tragedies. The histories. The comedies.

There are no prisoners taken in the hilarious "The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (abridged)" currently on Wyuka's Swan Theatre outdoor stage.

Performed by the Crooked Codpiece Company - one of Lincoln's most resourceful, and raffish, theatre groups - the Adam Long/Daniel Singer/Jess Winfield scripted piece condenses all 37 of the Bard's plays into a 1 3/4-hour-long flurry of flippancy.

The piece is a theatrical tornado that swirls and spits snippets of Shakespeare's plays, interspersed with contemporary asides to the audience.

Brad Boesen, Tom Crew and Patrick Lambrecht are the hard-working and zany performers who portray an array of all of the play's characters, beginning with Romeo and ending with Hamlet, and with Othello, Macbeth, the Henrys and all the rest sandwiched in between.

From the start with "Romeo and Juliet," the premise of broad physical comedy, sophomoric slapstick and naughty adult innuendo and inflection is firmly established.

That's followed by the bloody "Titus Andronicus" presented as a televised cooking show, a rap version of "Othello" and all of the comedies ("Alls Well That Ends Well" through "The Merry Wives of Windsor") combined into one child's felt-board story performance.

The first act continues with a broadly-brogued "Macbeth," mad-cap versions of "Julius Caesar" and "Antony and Cleopatra," "Troilus and Cressida" as performance art and culminating in all of the history plays taking the form of a rag-tag histrionic football game.

"Coriolanus" is excluded from the revue because Crew objected to performing "the anus play."

The comedy's second act is devoted to a riotous version of the tragic tale of "Hamlet," complete with a 60-second-plus redux of the play.

Not content to bask in their radiant ridiculousness, the trio of actors accomplish another repeat of "Hamlet," achieved in only three seconds, followed by a speedy backwards rendition.

It takes a lot of chutzpah for an actor to pull it all out on the line with such and outlandish undertaking. There is no doing this show in a half-hearted manner.

Most certainly, Boesen, Crew and Lambrecht not only have the nerve and the brass to take it on, but they have the talent to pull it off.

While all three of the actors are immensely funny and satisfying in their efforts, Crew's zany antics have got to be singled out as simply gut-busting.

"The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (abridged)" is silly, saucy and side-splitting, and the outdoor environment is an added treat.

If you go...

What: "The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (abridged)"
Where: The Swan, Wyuka Cemetery, 3600 "O" Street
When: 7:30 p.m. today, Sunday and July 20-23 and 27-30
Tickets: $18, $12 senior citizens and students; 473-2895 or www.crookedcodpiece.com