Theatre review: Complete Works of William Shakespeare (abridged) [revised] [again] takes pleasingly panicked tour of the Bard’s canon

As if haunted by centuries of hits and flops, the three figures in this Bard on the Beach comedy take jabs at the self-consciousness and shaky footing of being an actor

By Angie Rico

Nathan Kay (left) and Craig Erickson in The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (abridged) [revised] [again]. Photo by Tim Matheson

Bard on the Beach presents The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (abridged) [revised] [again] at the Douglas Campbell Theatre to September 20

FOR EVERY PLAY STAGED at Bard on the Beach, actors sign up to do something daunting: step into a role that’s already been done to death, studied, adapted, torn apart, reassembled, and performed for hundreds of years. And they do it anyway. 

The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (abridged) [revised] [again], showing for the first time at Vanier Park, takes that challenge and makes it even worse. Veering extremely close to masochism, it tasks its cast with performing the entirety of the Bard’s canon in under two hours. 

The set-up is that they’re being forced into this by a creepy disembodied voice that gives them little in terms of direction, other than that it should be “good”. So the actors are left to their own devices, periodically reminded that should they fail to complete their mission, they’ll all be turned into a canned intermission refreshment. That refreshment shows up later as a puppet (or technically, an actor turned snack, played by a puppet) who pops in with a musical number to remind everyone what’s at stake. 

If that sounds a little too whimsical, this show might not be for you. It’s part sketch comedy, part meta-theatre spiral, and fully committed to the bit. It’s panic, it’s enthusiasm, it’s three actors barely holding it together and losing it, with the audience right there with them. They keep circling back, anxiously energized, to their dutiful task (putting on Shakespeare), and by default so do we.  

And putting on Shakespeare, as it turns out, can be a messy and high-wired endeavour. 

Think of all the successes and failures, all the beloved hits and forgotten flops that haunt those tents every time they spring up with fresh anticipation each summer. Within the absurd world this show creates, that’s something very real on the performers’ minds. The self-consciousness, the eager-to-please quality, and the shaky footing of being an actor are all constantly satirized. One of the opening jokes is about the play not being on the “big” BMO stage, right before actor Craig Erickson makes sure we know that he is in that one too, reprising other roles. 

Tess Degenstein in The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (abridged) [revised] [again]. Photo by Tim Matheson

The cast is exactly who you want for this kind of chaos. I think you’d be hard-pressed to find more inventive or game performers for this production. Erickson does his best to keep things on track, even as he ends up cackling like a witch or mid–interpretive dance with Nathan Kay. Kay plays it like he wandered into the show by mistake and decided to commit anyway. He gets every name wrong, hurls himself into every pratfall, and steals scenes through sheer, oblivious confidence. His Ophelia becomes a punishing full-body exercise in slapstick. Tess Degenstein (alternated by Arghavan Jenati) plays it more cool. She barrels through the plays with the authority of someone who’s done the readings—even as she’s winging it, like when she writes a script for the troupe to condense around 17 comedies in a single plot, complete with a Mediterranean setting, a shipwreck, a duke, love triangles, crossdressing, and a wedding.  

The mashup moment is the kind of broad comedy that a lot of Complete Works leans into. Director Mark Chavez keeps that jokey but reverent tone in check. He’s updated the script just enough to let in local references and a fair number of sly jabs at Bard on the Beach itself. Not even artistic director Christopher Gaze is safe.  

Ryan Cormack’s set design and Alaia Hamer’s rapid-fire costume changes make use of shelves upon shelves of wigs, props, and costumes pulled straight from past Bard productions. Full credit to stage manager Rebecca Mulvihill, who keeps the whole machine churning.  

Anton Lipovetsky’s brief musical interludes seem like they’re meant to give the cast a break, until they cue up another round of chaos and send them dancing uncontrollably. 

Complete Works is playing it for laughs, sure—but the hustle underneath is very real. It knows the canon is heavy, so it chucks it in the air, drops it, shrugs, picks it back up, and keeps it going. That’s the rigging behind the tent, and how fun it is to see it creak and hold.

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