It’s been a while since the Shakespeare Theatre of New Jersey has done The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (abridged) [revised]. The last time, in 2018, it was performed outdoors at the splendid Greek ampitheatre on the grounds of the College of St. Elizabeth. This time, it’s being performed indoors at the air-conditioned F.M. Kirby Theatre on the campus of Drew University, and it’s been revised (again!) by two of the original playwrights, Daniel Singer and Jess Winfield, who wrote the original with Adam Long back in the early 1980’s.
If, when you hear you’re going to see an evening of Shakespeare, you think you’ll be seeing a deadly dull evening of Art with a capital A, well… that ain’t what you’re gonna be gettin’ here. Don’t get me wrong — you’ll get to see Shakespeare being performed by skilled professional actors. Three of them, in fact, taking a stab at all 38 plays (yes, they include The Two Noble Kinsmen, the is-it-or-isn’t-it collaboration between Shakespeare and John Fletcher), leaving the audience breathless from laughter and dazzled by the slings and arrows of outrageous farce, set before us in a madcap show entitled The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (abridged) [revised] [again].
Three marvelous Shakespeare Theatre veterans — Ty Lane, Patrick Toon, and Kayla Ryan Walsh — have their natural comedic talents aided and abetted by the skillful direction of Jeffrey M. Bender. It does, after all, take a certain kind of genius to conjure up such classic and familiar Shakespearean scenes as the all-star football game of the histories, Titus Andronicus’ cooking show, all seventeen comedies merged into one big comedy (since they all have the same plot, anyway), and four different Hamlets, each one faster than the one before and the last one done backwards. Oh, yes, and let’s not forget the presentation of all 158 sonnets (this is the complete works of Shakespeare, after all).
Each actor has their chance to shine. Kayla Ryan Walsh’s serious, demented focus serves her well as a hammy Hamlet and an out-of-her-depth “pre-eminent” Shakespearean scholar, among other parts. Patrick Toon handles the pre-show announcements with just enough wry observations to indicate maybe all’s not as deadly dull here as it was in your high school English class. He also handles such diverse roles as Polonius, Romeo (dude!), Julius Caesar, and Juliet’s Nurse. As for Ty Lane, he forces us to view many of Shakespeare’s heroines from a slightly different angle (including a never-before-scene of Ophelia’s death), then unexpectedly stops the show delivering a moving reading of a lesser-known soliloquy from “Hamlet”.
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Of course, what Shakespearean play doesn’t involve its audience? This time, the “groundlings” took part in a lesson on how to act on many levels of meaning and a show-of-hands survey about just how smart an audience we really were.
Technical credits go to set designer Sarah Beth Hall, whose stage-filling prop-filled library, lit by Andrew Hungerford, features three doors (including a dutch door) for fast entrances and faster exits. Costume designer Daniel Ciba also gets credit for creating base costumes with great freedom to move, which when combined with accessories conjure unmistakable, instantly recognizable characters.
For a perfectly hilarious diversion, you won’t go wrong by spending a mid-summer’s night (or an afternoon) at The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (abridged) [revised] [again]! I cannot urge you more strongly to see it before its brief run is over!
The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (abridged) [revised] [again] is being presented by the Shakespeare Theatre of New Jersey at the F.M. Kirby Theatre on the campus of Duke University in Madison through Aug. 3, 2025. For tickets and information, visit shakespearenj.org
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