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After the Charleston Community Theater performances this weekend, cast members have different opinions on what William Shakespeare would think.

“He’d probably kick us in the nuts and say ‘What are you doing?'” said Matt Fear, director and performer of “The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (abridged).”

Aaron Clark, who performed alongside Fear, provided a more serious opinion, thinking that Shakespeare would have appreciated the support.

“I think Shakespeare would kind of look at it and say, ‘Hey, thanks for bringing it to the masses,'” he said.

Mike Harvey, the acting trio’s third member, had a very different view from his two co-stars.

Harvey said that Shakespeare would probably not say much because “I don’t think he’d have any teeth left. He’d probably smell bad.”

Harvey also thought that when Shakespeare realized he was over 400 years old he might have another question on his mind. “[He would probably wonder], ‘Why am I not dead?'” Harvey said.

Despite some complications due to weather, this weekend’s performances were very successful, Fear said.

“I thought this weekend’s performances were amazing,” said Fear. “The evening performances I thought were a lot better.”

The Saturday afternoon performance was difficult for the actors because of a low turnout crowd and hot weather, said Fear. However, the Sunday performance was better despite poor weather conditions.

“We had to bring the audience up on the stage because it started raining and they were all like up in our faces,” said Fear. “We had a really good time with it.”

With all three actors commuting to Charleston for the performances, it caused the actors to be in high gear all the time.

“We’re all from Champaign-Urbana and it was kind of a marathon driving back and forth,” said Clark, “but it was worth every minute of it.”

The show, which was described as a mixture between Shakespeare and “Saturday Night Live,” served up laughter for audience members of all different ages and backgrounds.

“Everyone can come to this show,” said Clark, “even if you love Shakespeare, never seen Shakespeare, hate Shakespeare; I think you would enjoy seeing the show.”

The goal of the play was to fit all of Shakespeare’s major plays and all of his sonnets into a performance of less than two hours.

Another key element of the performances was that Fear, Clark and Harvey were the only three actors. The trio opened the performance with their rendition of “Romeo and Juliet.”

“It would be impossible for us to portray all the major characters of ‘Romeo and Juliet’ using only three actors,” said Fear, who was serving as narrator, “so we’re doing it using only two.”

Many of the jokes from the play came from references to popular culture and history as well as local Charleston attractions.

During the introduction, Fear was introduced as one of the preeminent scholars on Shakespeare.

“He received a bachelor’s degree from right over here at Eastern Illinois University where he read two whole books on Shakespeare,” Clark announced.

The performance of

“Romeo and Juliet” was filled with these references to popular culture.

In the opening scene, when a fight erupts between Abraham and Sampson, Harvey and Clark turned the fight into a dance off to “Beat It” by Michael Jackson.

In the climactic scene where Juliet poisons herself, Harvey, portraying Juliet, begins choking on the poison.

“It kind of feels like President Bush with a pretzel,” said Harvey.

Following “Romeo and Juliet,” the actors continued to keep moving through the rest of Shakespeare’s plays.

The cast first announced that due to the lack of an African American actor, the cast would be skipping “Othello.” However, Harvey said he had an idea. Harvey began to beatbox and then began to sing.

“Here’s the story of a brother named Othello,” rapped Harvey. “He liked white women, and he liked green Jell-O.”

In addition to the hip-hop version of “Othello,” the cast also performed a version of “Julius Caesar” in which Caesar was portrayed as homosexual and a version of “Titus Andronicus” presented as a cooking show.

The cast informed the audience that with Shakespeare’s comedies, there are only a few themes that he decided to use throughout all the plays. Therefore, they wanted to ask him, “Why did you write 13 plays when you could have written just one?”

In answer to the question, the cast demonstrated their version of this one play that Shakespeare could have written. The play had two titles that reflected the titles of Shakespeare’s 13 comedies, but they also offered one that was simpler to remember: “The Love Boat Goes to Verona.”

In another montage scene, the cast presented all nine of Shakespeare’s histories in the form of a football game. This made it possible to symbolize the progression of the crown through the history of England.

At one point in the game, Fear portrayed a referee giving King Lear a penalty for “fictional character on the field.”

Clark said that the histories are his favorite part of the play.

“I’m a huge, huge football fan, so I love the histories,” he said, “messing around and acting like we’re playing football. Since I was a small guy in high school and I didn’t get to play football, at least I get to do it on stage.”

In the second act of the play, the cast performed “Hamlet” four times. The first run through was a full performance, the second and third times they performed it faster, and the final time they did they play backwards.

For both participants and the audience, “Hamlet” proved to be the most enjoyed part of the play.

“[My favorite part] would be when Mike comes out in the Hamlet’s father ghost thing and they cut the eye holes out and all I can see is Mike’s face and his crazy eyes,” said Fear.

“We enjoyed [the play] a lot,” said Brian Murphy of Mattoon, “My favorite part had to be Hamlet.”

Despite being one of the most enjoyable parts of the play, “Hamlet” is also one of the most difficult plays for the actors. Fear said that Hamlet is the most difficult character to portray, and Clark shared the sentiment about playing Polonius.

“He’s such an old guy,” said Clark. “I’m kind of bent over and doing physical things. Mike knocks me down a couple times. We’re definitely sore from that this weekend.”

Throughout all the plays the cast performed, Harvey played all the female roles. Harvey said that it’s easy to play female characters.

“They’re very easy to figure out and one dimensional,” he said. “All I had to do was scream and go up an octave in my voice and look pretty.”

Harvey said he especially enjoys playing Juliet.

“Juliet is really funny in the way scholars have looked on [her],” he said. “She’s looked on as a ditz and deceiving Romeo and getting him to do all this stuff like she’s young and stupid. So she got portrayed by someone young and stupid.”

Fear, Clark and Harvey have been practiced for over a month to prepare for the four performances in Charleston this weekend.

“The time that went into before the last week was a couple hours a day, maybe two or three times a week for about a month,” said Fear. “The week before it was 40 hours a week, every day, and freaking out.”

The actors were very impressed with Charleston and said they would definitely perform in Charleston again.

“As college students, I think [Eastern students] are a very viable audience,” said Fear, “and I think they should support as much community theater as they can because it is a good opportunity for them to get involved in theater and to have something else to do besides binge drink and frat parties.”

Clark said that the people he has met who are involved with the Charleston Community Theater have been amazing.

“They’ve been more than enough supportive of us,” he said. “All we had to do was do the show, and everyone was so supportive and so nice and so great; it was fantastic.”

For the actors, one of the best parts of the experience was the opportunity to perform together.

“It was really an honor to do such a great show with two amazing actors and that they’re friends of mine,” said Harvey. “Honestly, I’m glad I got to do this. And the experience has been fantastic.”

“Just being on stage with Matt and Mike was the best part of the show for me,” said Clark.

“The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (abridged)” was originally written by Adam Long, Daniel Singer and Jess Winfield of The Reduced Shakespeare Company.

Mike Harvey, Aaron Clark and Matt Fear perform “Julius Ceaser,” From “The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (Abridged). Clark portrayed Julius Ceaser.

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