Reduced Shakespeare
Company


Photo 1: Reduced Shakespeare Company souvenir program.

 

The souvenir program featured a fascinating interview with The Bard himself.

 I made it back to the hostel in time to shower and change and then proceeded to wait for Lacy. I was just about ready to leave for the theater when she breezed in just in time to change and get on our way. The East London Underground line was closed for reconstruction because the subway tunnel under the Thames was leaking badly and rotting the rail ties. So they had a mini-bus which made the same route through the narrow streets and visited all the (closed) Underground stations. It was a really exciting to ride this bus through the Rotherthite Tunnel because it was only inches narrower than the maximum width limit and the driver was very careful when navigating that bend in the middle of the tunnel. When we finally got to the Whitechapel station we took the Underground out to Covent Garden to the Criterion Theater.

Among the other diverse entertainments out on the pavement (sidewalks) was a guy with a bicycle who was taking £5 bets that you couldn't ride his bicycle 10 feet. The trick was that had welded a pair of gears into the steering column so that when you turn the handles right, the bike went left and vice versa. Nobody was able to ride it for more than a few feet without falling off (to the great amusement of the gathered crowd) and the huckster was making a good pile of money that evening.

The Reduced Shakespeare Theater turned out to be three American guys (Adam Long, Matthew Hendrickson, and David Letwin) who do what is claimed to be the "Complete works of William Shakespeare (abridged)" in a little less than three hours. To give you an idea of what we were in for, the show started with the warning:

This show is a high-speed roller-caster type condensation of the complete works of William Shakespeare and is not recommended for people with heart ailments, English degrees, inner ear disorders, and/or people inclined to motion sickness. The Reduced Shakespeare Company cannot be held responsible for expectant mothers.

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