The “fourth wall” disappears throughout the performance, with the actors frequently speaking directly to the audience. The Bard’s phrases are delivered out of context, by three actors who are often in drag, wear outlandish wigs, display acrobatic skills and speak in rap as well as rhyme. The first act revolves around excerpts of individual lines from numerous Shakespearean plays – 36, to be precise. The show was written – or perhaps I should say “put together” – by Adam Long, Daniel Singer, and Jess Winfield in 1987, and has become a favorite of school drama departments and adventuresome community theaters. This basic description may be helpful if you are planning to attend a performance of The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (Abridged), now in a fine production at Shakespeare & Company, in Lenox, Massachusetts. Farce, on the other hand, is an exaggerated humor or ridiculous action, leading us to laugh at what is being said and performed on the stage with little relationship to our lives or personal behavior. In comedy we recognize people or events to which we can relate, understand and even laugh at ourselves. When classifying a humorous play, we generally label it into one of two categories: comedy or farce.
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