THEATRE REVIEW
The complete works of William Shakespeare (abridged) in two hours
BY NANCY STETSON Florida Weekly Correspondent

Ever read the entire works of William Shakespeare and feel like a cultural illiterate?

Don't get thee to a nunnery but hie thee instead to the Off-Broadway Palm Dinner Theatre, where you can rectify the matter. Kind of.

You won't read Bill's entire works but you'll get to see them all performed. Kind of.

Theatre Conspiracy's presenting "The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (abridged)" through Aug. 18. (Will Prather, owner of the Broadway Palm, has kindly offered the use of the theater's 90-seat black box to the now-homeless Theatre Conspiracy for the summer.)

All of Shakespeare in two hours?

Think Evelyn Wood meets Readers Digest as interpreted by the Three Stooges and you'll get an idea of what those two hours are like.

Hey, if broadcast news can condense politics down to six-second soundbites and newspapers cover world news with just a handful of paragraphs, why can't three wisealeck actors cover all of Shakespeare in a couple hours?

The show features a trio of actors (Christopher Brent, Jesse St. Louis and Jordan Wilson) who approach Shakespeare without a smidge of pretentiousness or stuffiness. If you're a purist, you'll be horrified. Which is exactly the point.

Written by Adam Long, Daniel Singer and Jess Winfield, calling themselves the Reduced Shakespeare Company, the show was first performed in 1987 at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival and is the longest-running comedy in London history.

The show contains lots of broad humor, slapstick, funny voices and men in dresses. (Well, men played the women's roles in Shakespeare's time too.) Clown noses, wigs and headpieces are thrown on and ripped off with abandon as the actors rush from role to role, portraying myriad characters. But there's also an abundance of juvenile humor: an actor reading a book about Shakespeare entitled "I Love My Willy," an actor who thinks all of Shakespeare's women had extended vomiting scenes.

Brent and St. Louis present themselves as the more sensible ones while Wilson portrays his character with Keanu Reeveslike dimness. (Judging from previous productions, Wilson seems to be making a career out of playing none-too-bright slackers, surfer dudes and high school drop-outs.) It's a schtick that garners laughs, such as when he gives a talk on the biography of Shakespeare, drops his index cards, and accidentally weaves Hitler's biography into Shakespeare's while totally oblivious to the mix-up.

Brent is hilarious as Juliet's nurse, giving an over-the-top performance with a Southern accent. (Think "Gone With the Wind" meets "Romeo and Juliet.") And St. Louis made me laugh out loud while performing with hand puppets during "Hamlet."

But the production's uneven -- or at least it was on preview night. It gave me some good laughs, but there were moments when the jokes --or even an entire scene's premise fell flat. I wanted to laugh much more than I did.

"Titus Andronicus" as a Julia Child-esque cooking show never really took off, nor did the scene where they mash 16 of Shakespeare's comedies together into one. And when Brent's fellow actors run off and leave him to fend for himself on stage alone, the scene painfully drags on too long.

While I enjoyed some parts of the show, I was disappointed by others: some scenes merely provide chuckles or just a smile, rather than flat-out laughs.

Richard Westlake, the show's director, is a pro at comedic acting, but comedy is a difficult art to teach. Some things must be innate to the actor: a sense of comedic timing, a flair for improvisation.

When a national touring company performed the show at the Barbara B. Mann a number of years ago, it was much more zany and madcap; this production seems as if Wayne and Garth (of "Wayne's World") decided to do some Shakespeare in their basement with a friend. With the touring company, you believed the actors could actually perform Shakespeare seriously, which added to the humor. With this production, you don't.

Act II picks up with some audience participation and a variety of versions of "Hamlet," including my favorite: a backwards version in which the three actors perform a condensed version of the play from end to beginning, moving and speaking backwards.

This production is a mixed bag, but the actors are smart enough to leave the audience laughing. Or, as Shakespeare says, "All's well that ends well." ¦ If you go

>>What: The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (abridged)

>>When: through Aug. 18, Thursday through Saturday evenings and selected matinees

>>Where: The Off-Broadway Palm Dinner Theatre, 1380 Colonial Blvd. >>Cost: $19 - $39 >>Information: Call 936-3239 or go to www. theatreconspiracy.org