Word: bards
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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YESTERDAY was Shakespeare's 423rd birthday. What better way to celebrate the anniversary of the Bard's birth than to put on a production of his first play, Comedy of Errors...
SHAKESPEARE CAUTIONED THAT "Brevity is the soul of wit," a dictum taken to heart by the American Repertory Theatre's Late Night Cabaret crew. The two parodies of the Bard they are offering weekends at the Hasty Pudding Theater together run less than hour long; still, at $5 a head, it's more yuk-per-buck than has been seen on a Boston stage for a long time...
Scrupulously following the action of Shakespeare's play, The Skinhead Hamlet nonetheless observes the aesthetic standards of its modern setting. Going far beyond the Bard's request for "brevity," playwright Richard Curtis has provided the most laconic dialogue in memory. Hamlet's famous--and, in a bad production, interminable--soliloquy is reduced here to eight words. In the economical vocabulary of Curtis' leather-clad characters, a particular unprintable word suggesting the sexual act makes up half the dialogue, to hilarious result...
...attack held its own. Lemonheads cross catchy pop melodies with premium-fueled rockabilly riffs of the type Billy Zoom used to spew out with X. Although their simpler and more familiar sound suffered a bit in comparison with Bullet Lavolta's complexity, Lemonheads came across live as a pop bard with serious balls. A particular delight was "I Don't Wanna," an infectious single which could easily be played on WBCN but which never gave the impression of sucking up to the mainstream (for more on Lemonheads, see the review of their upcoming album...
...INNOVATE or not to innovate? 'Tis it nobler to experiment with the basic texts of English theater or to remain faithful to the immortal words of the Bard? Lisa Freinkel's production of Macbeth answers these questions with resounding indecision. Actors in odd costumes stride about on a modishly surreal set, but the performance never takes us anywhere we haven't been before...