Michael Faulkner is still working on reducing his waistline -- or so he quips -- but he's helped abridge the Bard successfully since 2001. As a player in the California-based Reduced Shakespeare Company, he's gotten all 37 plays down to 97 minutes -- with some alterations, of course.
"Well, Shakespeare didn't really become Shakespeare until people started adapting his plays 100-200 years after his death," Faulkner muses. "Ironically, the plays those people were seeing were often re-written greatly. So he's been adapted from the beginning of his notoriety."
FAQ
‘The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (Abridged)’
WHEN — 7 p.m. Oct. 17
WHERE — Walton Arts Center in Fayetteville
COST — $15 & up
INFO — 443-5600
During the 1980s, he explains, many Shakespeare plays were compressed to one acts at Renaissance fairs -- and right in the middle of the trend with "Hamlet" and "Romeo and Juliet" were Adam Long, Daniel Singer and Jess Winfield, the founders of the Reduced Shakespeare Company. They "introduced a fast, funny physicality to overcome the highly inebriated audiences," Faulkner explains.
"What they did that was revolutionary, however, was when they thought, 'we've reduced two plays. ... how hard can the remaining 35 be,'" he says, "and 'The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (Abridged)' was born.
"Legend tells that they were still writing some of it on the plane on the way to the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, where they won 'Best of the Fringe' and subsequently ran in London's West End," Faulkner adds. "After becoming famous in England, Austin Tichenor, Reed Martin and Adam Long decided that to become known back home, they should write 'The Complete History of America (Abridged).' They did so, and the franchise continues through 11 shows and numerous television, radio and airplane appearances."
Faulkner says he fell in love with Shakespeare the first time he saw "A Midsummer Night's Dream" when he was in junior high. In fact, he loved it so much, the next summer he was in the festival company.
"It was definitely love at first sight, because I learned that the dressing rooms (at least back then) were co-ed, and I was 13," he jokes.
Audiences love reduced Shakespeare for an equally fulfilling reason, he adds: "Because we cut out all the minor characters and boring subplots and get right to the sex and the killing. Which is what people really want to see."
NAN What's Up on 10/13/2019