CurtainUp
The Internet Theater Magazine of Reviews, Features,
Annotated Listings
A CurtainUp London Review
Shit-Faced Shakespeare
by Malcolm Beckett
|
"Always enjoy Shakespeare responsibly" — from the programme
|
Louise Lee as Leonata with Hero and Claudio in the background (Photo: Rah Petherbridge)
|
The other, abstemious members of the cast carry on regardless with some of Shakespeare's original prose. If the drunken cast player starts to sober up there is a jester on hand to keep plying them with drink. Only six from a company of ten cast members take on the Much Ado main roles and a member of the audience is recruited to play Margaret the maid which adds to the fun as it is a man who has to wear a frock and be rogered by Don John.
The audience, some of whom undoubtedly had started drinking before the curtain up, joined in with the performance often shouting encouragement to all and sundry. I started thinking that this was a travesty of such a notable play but then I looked at the drawings of the Elizabethan theatre where the mass of the public stood in The Pit, drinking, eating and heckling and it seems likely to me that this is a return to what was the genuine seventeenth century experience.
What is an interesting take on the production is that a different player is chosen to be inebriated each night so what you see today will not be the same tomorrow. The night I saw it, the drunk was Beatrice (Stacey Norris) 's bedfellow Hero (Beth-Louise Priestley) who was legless. As you will remember, Hero is wooed and then exposed at the altar by Claudio (Saul Marron) after the intervention of the villainous bastard Don John (John Sebastian Trixibelle Petherbridge Mitton).
The drunkeness in this instance slants the play away from the love story of Beatrice and Benedict and becomes about Hero who, under the cover of feisty drunkeness, starts to question whether she really does want to be married to the man who has been so easily influenced to desert her. She threatens to expose Claudio on Facebook.
The costumes are colourful and the men have exaggerated cod pieces to lllustrate their man hood apart from poor dear Margaret who will struggle with her puff sleeves and headdress. Hero's father Leonato transgenders into her mother Leonata (Louise Lee) who manfully fences with Don John in a duelling finale.
May I suggest that audience members will have a more enjoyable evening if they are not stone cold sober and can join in the merriment. The rotation of the cast maintains the freshness and at 70 minutes, the evening will fly by. Against all of this is the fact that this is a one joke presentation, if sober or an aficionado this may not be for you.
Search CurtainUp in the box below
PRODUCTION NOTES
Shit-Faced Shakespeare
Adapted by Lewis Ironside
Directed by Stacy Norris
With: Stacey Norris, Rob Smythson, Beth-Louise Priestley, Victoria Fitz-Gerald, Jack Bence, Ruth Williams, Saul Marron, Louise Lee, James Murfitt, John Sebastian Trixibelle Petherbridge Mitton
Set Design: Alex Stevenson
Costume Design: Lorna Jean Costumes
Lighting Design: Davey Naylor
Choreographer: Beth-Louise Priestley
Fight Director: David Ellis
Running time: One hours 10 minutes with no interval
Box Office: 020 7734 2222
Booking to 16th September 2017
Reviewed by Malcolm Beckett based on 13th April 2017 performance at Leicester Square Theatre, Leicester Place, London WC2H 7BX (Tube: Leicester Square)
Index of reviewed shows still running
REVIEW FEEDBACK
Highlight one of the responses below and click "copy" or"CTRL+C"
- I agree with the review of Shit-Faced Shakespeare
- I disagree with the review of Shit-Faced Shakespeare
- The review made me eager to see Shit-Faced Shakespeare
Paste the highlighted text into the subject line (CTRL+ V):
Feel free to add detailed comments in the body of the email. . .also the names and emails of any friends to whom you'd like us to forward a copy of this review.
For a feed to reviews and features as they are posted at http://curtainupnewlinks.blogspot.com; to your reader
Curtainup at Facebook . . . Curtainup at Twitter