Mark Yowakim and Jason Schlaman in Macbeth. Photo by Sarah Haley
To many people, the word Shakespeare causes severe nervousness, like a triple dose of the flu or advanced calculus.
“Yeeks! Shakespeare!”
That happens for several reasons. The Bard’s work covers the history of England and not the U.S., it is the history of a long-gone era. Most of all, it is the length of the Bard’s work, which is sometimes three hours.
How does a theater get around that?
Well, the Shakespeare Theatre of New Jersey has gotten around that problem in a rather deft and thoroughly successful way – the “short Shakespeare“ season at their home at Drew University, in Madison.
Each year, the theater stages shortened Shakespearean plays, usually just an hour and fifteen minutes to an hour and a half. You see the same play, with the same characters, using the same dialogue, but at a shortened length, sometimes just half the running time of the full production. This year’s plays are Midsummer Night’s Dream and Macbeth. They opened last Saturday back to back, and will be staged on different days through May 14, Last year’s short work was “Romeo and Juliet.”
The stunning achievement of the Shakespeare Theatre is that it manages to present these “short’ plays with as much success as when these same plays are presented in their “long” version. The story moves along swiftly and in the audience you cannot tell what has been edited down or cut out. The actors present their characters at their full power. The drama is still there (or the comedy). You have a wonderful time at the theater and when you get up to leave you look at your watch and see that just 75 minutes have passed. Just 75 minutes and you have seen a complete, trimmed down, Shakespeare play.
“And we keep all of the same dialogue, too. We do not ‘dumb down’ these plays. That’s very important,” said Brian Crowe, one of the theater’s directors and a man who has directed several shortened plays.
Ethan James Lynch and Jabari Carter in A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Photo by Sarah Haley
The goal of these short Shakespeare plays is not just to present good theater. They are marketed to an adult audience but also to a “family” audience, which means lot of young people.
“What we try to do is get young people interested – no– ‘excited’ about Shakespeare. We want them to enjoy the plays and come back again for full length plays. We are building a future audience,” said Crowe, a veteran of these plays, that have been presented by the theater for years.
“While that is true, at some performances there are just very few young people and at some, even, no kids and all adult theatergoers in the theater’s audience. We have a lot of theatergoers here who are eager to see all of the different kinds of work we do, which is very encouraging to all of us,” added Crowe.
Some things about the short plays are surprising. I always thought the company bought these trimmed down scripts from a play publishing company. They do not. People at the theater themselves, singly or in groups, trim the plays and publish them as new scripts for their actors.
“We know how we want to do this, and what we want the short plays to look like,” said Crowe, “and that’s why we do this ourselves.”
Brianna Martinez, Christopher Snell, and Sophia Andrea Torres in Macbeth. Photo by Sarah Haley
Another reason is that throughout the year, the shortened plays are staged at different schools around the state. Schools have no time for a full length Macbeth, but an hour and fifteen version fits nicely into the school day.
“Through the schools and our short play season at Drew, we build a very large audience for all of our work,” continued Crowe.
“And, let’s face it,” adds A.C. Horton, another one of the Shakespeare Theatre of New Jersey’s directors, “Shakespeare, as great as he was, still needs a little editing here and there.”
“….but…” Crowe adds, “the finished, shortened product works and works well.”
The family ticket holder reaction?
“They all agree that through our editing we still give them exciting plays. That is our biggest goal,” said Crowe.
Horton agrees. “We want to make these ‘fast’ plays, well written works that move along quickly to hold that young person’s attention,” she said.
The cast of A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Photo by Sarah Haley
When Crowe and his colleagues shorten the plays, they still keep in certain factors of the full script. “A play is not just a story in dialogue. It is many things. We keep in, in our shortened version, the very solid plot of the story, We keep in the different parts of the story, no matter how small they are. We don’t jump around and confuse the audience,” he said.
He pauses. “The actors. We need to have our actors play the trimmed down roles just as well as they would in the full version. The shortened plays also serve as a ‘teaching academy’ to give our young actors more and more experience. We like that and so do the actors. In the long play, an actor will usually play one role, In the shortened play he or she might play between two and six roles.”
Crowe said the actors like the shortened plays. “They enjoy the chance to portray a number of characters,” he said.
Crowe, as a director, enjoys the short plays. too. “People will tell me it’s less work, but work is not just time. It is attention to the story. I really enjoy directing the short plays, I find them challenging, too, and a source of great professional satisfaction,” he said.
So, theater fans, head to the Shakespeare Theatre of New Jersey at Drew University to see one of these shortened plays, but don’t blink!
Click here for ticket information. The theatre is located at 36 Madison Avenue in Madison, New Jersey.
Mark Yowakim in Macbeth. Photo by Sarah Haley
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