The Shakespeare Show: Will the real Shakespeare please stand up?

From behind the audience comes a great speech, but not one that would make any sense – it is a spray of Shakespeare’s quotes, meant to evoke emotions and familiarity.

Thus starts The Shakespeare Show. The speech is delivered by Will Shakespeare himself (Ryan Gladstone), but as he is quick to point out, he is not the true star of the show. That position is reserved for Lord Oxford, who you might remember as a two-second segue in your high school career – “Some say that Lord Oxford was the true author of Shakespeare’s plays, but let’s not waste precious moment asking why, and move on to four years of tragedies.” What follows is a hilarious education on why it’s silly to believe that an illiterate son of a glover could ever be the greatest playwright in the world.

There are few things funnier than Tara Travis and Ryan Gladstone playing everyone who was anyone in London in the 1590’s... plus a whole bunch of folk who died from the plague. Each character is so perfectly performed that even though Travis and Gladstone have to cover a half dozen roles each, there is no question of who you are watching at any given moment.

The characters were so wonderfully exaggerated, I felt like I was watching an antiquated marionette show – and then they brought out the puppet! I’d like to say that the puppet of the three crones was the highlight of the show, but then a dozen other scenes pop into my mind, for example the thumb-biting dual between Christopher Marlowe and the Censor, or perhaps the gelatinous Anne Hathaway calling upon her rogue husband.

Gladstone’s writing is like being at a party with Oscar Wilde – quick and sharp. Lose track for a second and you know you’ll have missed a good laugh. The introductory song “London Town,” co-written with Jeff Gladstone, gives a delicious summation of old London with an added touch of visual comedy. Travis, playing Queen Elizabeth I, belts out the version of God Save the Queen that should have been sung in schools.

There are so many plays about Shakespeare out there that it is rare to find one this original. Should you have children facing years of Shakespeare shovel-fed to them by overworked, underpaid high school teachers, this play will help them to see that the plays were meant to be fun.

Produced by: Monster Theatre; Written by Ryan Gladstone; Directed by: Karen Hamm; Performed by: Tara Travis, Ryan Gladstone

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