Comedy routine or inspired lunacy–whatever it is, this is the complete script of it, including the shortest “Hamlet” ever performed (and then done backwards for an encore), and “Titus Andronicus” as a cooking show. There’s lots of fun between these covers for both the bardolator and the bard-hater, including a strange collection of annotations by a not-quite-so learned professor. Although some bits don’t play as well on the page, it’s not that long and at least you don’t have to suffer through some inane laugh track.

actually read it way more than 5 times so don’t @ me plz

Even if you hate theatre, or even if you hate Shakespeare… you’ve gotta check this show out. I had the pleasure of performing in it back in 2019, and it was easily the most delightful, engaging, hilarious show I have ever been a part of. It increased my adoration of Shakespeare tenfold!

I loved these guys in high school, both live and in print.
I was a super-fun teenager.

trupa S.R.L. - Shakespeare Redus la Limită ..... și eu am fost redus la limita puterilor mele mentale după secțiunea cu Othello în "Epic Rap Battles of History" style. Mă duc să-mi Mac-tai venele.

Aceasta este una dintre cele mai proaste piese pe care le-am citit până acum. Are unele elemente bune, însă este atât de ieftin realizată încât nu pot trece cu vederea. Ironizarea pieselor lui Shakespeare este un concept foarte bun, însă realizarea lui de către acești trei artiști este oribilă.

I’m not a huge Shakespeare fan, but I knew enough about his work to appreciate The Complete Works of Shakespeare (Abridged) (Revised). Reading about all of the plays in such a short book was great fun, and I think my favorite part was when they compared the plays with kings and fighting to sports. (I also laughed out loud when one of the characters mistakenly called “Horatio” Fellatio. Oops.) Overall, I would like to see the play acted out and I would recommend this to people that appreciate both Shakespeare and pop culture humor.

This is a thoroughly fun play to read, but I’m not sure that anyone but RSC could perform it, as it should be performed, certainly I cannot imagine myself directing or acting in it with the community theater group I work with. Bummer. But! The play is on youtube by RSC. And I think they still tour -- go see them!

“All the world’s a stage…” – William Shakespeare, pretty famous playwright/poet

“Brevity is the soul of wit.” – Polonius, Hamlet, Act 2, Scene 2

“What the hell is going on out here?” – Vince Lombardi, legendary NFL coach

This is a book that needs no introduction (incidentally, it doesn’t have one, even if it did).

Let’s face it: life is short. And, being that is so, many of us busy people do not have the time to read the complete works of the genius of Shakespeare in our lifetimes. So, why not knock it all out in one book?

I remember this being all the rage years ago (I guess maybe more in literary circles). I even had a VHS tape copy of The Reduced Shakespeare Company’s production of Shakespeare’s works back in the day. I recently happened to stumble upon this book, which I had purchased years ago.

So, reading the play and watching it performed on stage can be two different experiences entirely. This trio of actors uses quite a bit of physical comedy and interaction with the audience, so sometimes this might not translate as well in print form. Luckily, I found a video of this online, so I was watching some parts while reading.

There are some definitely laugh out loud parts to this “rendition,” especially if you are familiar with some of Shakespeare’s works. It seems like the predominant ones they focus on are Romeo and Juliet and Hamlet (Hamlet is sort of the finale, with them performing a super quick version, followed by a backwards version). They lump quite a bit of the some of the “lesser known” plays into a few scenes.

I thought that the jokes—and interpretations—were mostly humorous, but did not really care for some of the sidebars, footnotes, etc. included in the book (some of these are a tad outdated as well). They are funniest when they are strictly lampooning Shakespeare’s works, less so with some of the extra stuff.

Overall, I was stuck between 3 and 4 stars, but bumped it up because I was laughing at some of their gags and lines. As it is Shakespeare, there are some suggestive/offensive scenes, or scenes that could be deemed offensive or more than PG 13 in their crassness.

Anyhow, hopefully the Bard has forgiven these guys by now.

I'm not sure if I had the revised version, but my general impression that I came away with was "hardy har har, aren't we funny?" I saw the show, which was hilarious. The script doesn't translate well, and I think the true magic is really in the actors.

Directing the dhow to be live-streamed November 5-7. Detail sat act-mn.org

Completely hysterical play about the wonderful works of Shakespeare! The play is based off of audience reactions and improvisation however, the script is still a wonderfully entertaining read. We suggest it to lighten up any Shakespeare lesson.