EDFRINGE REVIEW: Bad Shakespeare (TheatreOCU)
Bad Shakespeare – ★★☆☆☆ – Vexing
TheatreOCU7-12 Aug
Review by Rebecca Mahar
Promotional image, Bad Shakespeare.
Bad Shakespeare from TheatreOCU at Oklahoma City University promises a revue of Shakespeare’s baddies, a play in five acts, each exploring a different question along the theme of (with apologies to Shax himself): are villains born bad, do they achieve badness, or do they have badness thrust upon them? Despite this interesting premise, the production fails to live up to its promises and demonstrates a superficiality unbecoming of the complexity it claims to see in its subjects.
The structure of the piece is disjointed within its framing, flitting rapidly from monologue to monologue, mostly excerpts from longer speeches in the various plays from which it pulls its bad Shakespeare/bad Shakespeareans. Between each piece the actors address the audience, sometimes with attempts to explain what the character has been saying and why, sometimes only a few flippant words. In an effort to pack in as many examples of badness as possible, Bad Shakespeare has sacrificed almost all context, and audience members unfamiliar with the many plays touched on would be hard put to follow both what is being said and why these extracts have been chosen.
It has also sacrificed a great deal in the delivery of the Shakespearean speeches. The actors are giving it their all, but seem to have been misled into mistaking volume for emphasis and emotion. Metrical errors, too, are clearly present: the most egregious of these being a prose speech with shouted “emphasis” on words in a line that has been grammatically misunderstood, and which is then held up as an example of iambic pentameter. Most of the performances are superficial, lacking detail and specificity as much as the audience lacks context. As these are performers in training, the blame must fall to their instructors. The best performance of the lot is a moment between Angelo and Isabella from Measure for Measure, where two characters actually interact onstage, and shows that the actors of TheatreOCU have much greater potential than has been otherwise displayed in this production.
Deep misunderstandings —or simply bad, unsubtle takes— also run through Bad Shakespeare. For instance, Shylock is presented as having “no reason” for his badness and, in comparison to Marlowe’s Jew of Malta, held up as a three dimensional Jewish character by the script stating that “even the worst of the worst are human, right?” When Richard III is introduced, it is by a performer questioning whether some characters are “born bad,” and then when RIII appears next to them and they react with jumpscare horror at the slight “deformity” the actor has put on: “Jesus! Yes.” Angelo is described as “an angel” who turns to darkness because of Isabella, notwithstanding his abandonment of Mariana. And so on.
Further, Bad Shakespeare doesn’t seem to have decided what “bad Shakespeare” is, or what it’s trying to do. It seems at first to be a straightforward exploration of villainy, with characters such as Iago, Angelo, and Don John rightly included. However, it also lumps in characters such as Malvolio, Shylock, and Leontes who, while they may have antagonistic qualities, are certainly not on the same level as the others.. There’s plenty of space in the dramatic world for questioning the nature of characters, how good or bad or in-between they truly are, and the spectrum of morality that makes playing human beings so interesting. Bad Shakespeare does not make these kind of distinctions, simply saying “bad” and leaving the term —and its subjects— unexamined.
It is, unfortunately, bad Shakespeare.
Running time: One hour with no interval
Venue: Thistle Studio, Greenside @ Riddles Court (Venue 16), 322 Lawnmarket EH1 2PG
7-12 August 2026
Time: 4:05pm
Tickets: https://www.edfringe.com/tickets/whats-on/bad-shakespeare
The structure of the piece is disjointed within its framing, flitting rapidly from monologue to monologue, mostly excerpts from longer speeches in the various plays from which it pulls its bad Shakespeare/bad Shakespeareans. Between each piece the actors address the audience, sometimes with attempts to explain what the character has been saying and why, sometimes only a few flippant words. In an effort to pack in as many examples of badness as possible, Bad Shakespeare has sacrificed almost all context, and audience members unfamiliar with the many plays touched on would be hard put to follow both what is being said and why these extracts have been chosen.
It has also sacrificed a great deal in the delivery of the Shakespearean speeches. The actors are giving it their all, but seem to have been misled into mistaking volume for emphasis and emotion. Metrical errors, too, are clearly present: the most egregious of these being a prose speech with shouted “emphasis” on words in a line that has been grammatically misunderstood, and which is then held up as an example of iambic pentameter. Most of the performances are superficial, lacking detail and specificity as much as the audience lacks context. As these are performers in training, the blame must fall to their instructors. The best performance of the lot is a moment between Angelo and Isabella from Measure for Measure, where two characters actually interact onstage, and shows that the actors of TheatreOCU have much greater potential than has been otherwise displayed in this production.
Deep misunderstandings —or simply bad, unsubtle takes— also run through Bad Shakespeare. For instance, Shylock is presented as having “no reason” for his badness and, in comparison to Marlowe’s Jew of Malta, held up as a three dimensional Jewish character by the script stating that “even the worst of the worst are human, right?” When Richard III is introduced, it is by a performer questioning whether some characters are “born bad,” and then when RIII appears next to them and they react with jumpscare horror at the slight “deformity” the actor has put on: “Jesus! Yes.” Angelo is described as “an angel” who turns to darkness because of Isabella, notwithstanding his abandonment of Mariana. And so on.
Further, Bad Shakespeare doesn’t seem to have decided what “bad Shakespeare” is, or what it’s trying to do. It seems at first to be a straightforward exploration of villainy, with characters such as Iago, Angelo, and Don John rightly included. However, it also lumps in characters such as Malvolio, Shylock, and Leontes who, while they may have antagonistic qualities, are certainly not on the same level as the others.. There’s plenty of space in the dramatic world for questioning the nature of characters, how good or bad or in-between they truly are, and the spectrum of morality that makes playing human beings so interesting. Bad Shakespeare does not make these kind of distinctions, simply saying “bad” and leaving the term —and its subjects— unexamined.
It is, unfortunately, bad Shakespeare.
Running time: One hour with no interval
Venue: Thistle Studio, Greenside @ Riddles Court (Venue 16), 322 Lawnmarket EH1 2PG
7-12 August 2026
Time: 4:05pm
Tickets: https://www.edfringe.com/tickets/whats-on/bad-shakespeare
Comments
Post a Comment